Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society

What Is the Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society Complex?

The Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society (鈴屋遺蹟保存会, Suzunoya Iseki Hozonkai) buildings are a former office, a warehouse, a main gate and a wall built in 1909 on the Matsusaka Castle ruins in Tonomachi, Matsusaka City, Mie Prefecture, and all four became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 31 July 2007.

The society was formed to look after the house and papers of Motoori Norinaga (1730 to 1801), the Matsusaka physician and scholar of Japanese classics remembered above all for his long commentary on the Kojiki. Today it is a public interest foundation and runs the Motoori Norinaga Memorial Museum next door. The four structures went up as its headquarters in the same campaign that moved Norinaga's house onto the castle ground.

A note on the name: Suzunoya, not Suzuya. Suzu means bell, and Suzunoya was the name Norinaga gave his upstairs study. Over time the whole house came to be called Suzunoya too.

Moving a Scholar's House

According to the history compiled by the Motoori Norinaga Memorial Museum, the turning point for the Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society came in 1905. That year Norinaga was posthumously raised to the junior third court rank, and an imperial gift of 500 yen arrived, earmarked for preserving his house. In 1906 the Matsusaka town council voted to lend the society a plot at 1537 Tonomachi, rent free for 50 years, for a library and the relocated house. The plot was the Inkyo-maru, the "retirement enclosure" of the old castle.

In 1909 the house was taken down in the merchant quarter of Uomachi and rebuilt here, and the office, warehouse, gate and wall were built at the same time. Matsusaka City credits the working design to Okuno Eizo, a building officer attached to the Grand Shrine of Ise administration, under the supervision of Tsuchiya Junichi, a professor at Nagoya Higher Technical School. Moving the house, building the office group and laying out the garden cost a little over 15,500 yen in all.

The society became an incorporated foundation in 1942. When the museum opened in 1970, the old office was turned over to local history displays and then to the team writing the official history of Matsusaka. Since 1988 it has served as a tea room called Oshokaku (桜松閣), the "Cherry and Pine Pavilion."

The Four Registered Structures

The Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society structures were registered together in the 55th round, on 31 July 2007, as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties numbered 24-0063 to 24-0066. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the following sizes and grounds for registration.

• Former office: single-storey timber building, tiled roof, 117 square meters. Registered as a model of its type.
• Warehouse: 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse, tiled roof, 20 square meters, with a connecting passage to the office. Registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.
• Main gate: timber, tiled roof, 2.7 meters wide, with a wicket door on each side. Same grounds as the warehouse.
• Wall: timber, tiled roof, 11 meters long in total. Same grounds as the warehouse.

What sets the group apart, in Matsusaka City's reading, is the vigorous detailing of the office porch and the gate, both drawn from Daibutsuyō, the bold "Great Buddha style" of carpentry used in the rebuilding of Todaiji in the late 12th century. The museum's history adds that a single-storey brick office in a Western manner was considered first, before the timber design with its curved karahafu gable over the porch won out.

How the Site Fits Together

The Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society structures sit close together in the southeast part of the Inkyo-maru. The former office is the anchor, its front turned to the southeast.

The main gate stands southeast of the office on the northeast frontage of the plot. The warehouse lies to the office's southwest, faces northeast and is joined to it by a connecting passage. The wall runs from the southwest face of the office toward Motoori Norinaga's house and screens the grounds from the open square in front.

All four were placed in relation to the relocated house. The one opening in the wall is in its last bay, the one nearest the house.

Visiting

The Suzunoya Heritage Preservation Society structures stand inside the visiting area of the Motoori Norinaga Memorial Museum and Norinaga's house. The museum opens from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., last entry 4:30 p.m., and closes on Mondays (the next weekday when Monday is a holiday) and over the New Year. A combined ticket for the museum and the house costs 400 yen for adults, 300 yen for university students and 200 yen for children from fourth grade through high school, cash only (checked October 2026).

For a 2022 evening event, the Matsusaka tourism association explained that the garden in front of Oshokaku is normally entered with the combined museum ticket, and that the building itself is seen from outside only. Ask at the museum desk whether any interior is open on the day.

The Matsusaka Castle ruins are about a 15-minute walk from Matsusaka Station on the JR and Kintetsu lines. By bus, get off at Matsusaka Shiyakusho (City Hall) and walk 5 minutes; by car, allow about 10 minutes from the Matsusaka interchange of the Ise Expressway. Notes on what to look for at each structure are on the individual pages.