Iida Family Residence Pawn Storehouse

What the Pawn Storehouse Is

The Iida Family Residence Pawn Storehouse (飯田家住宅質蔵, Iida-ke Jūtaku Shichigura) is an early Meiji-period 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse in Toyoshina Takibe, Azumino City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005. A shichigura was a storehouse for goods taken in as security against loans.

It stands northeast of the reception wing that projects from the main house and northwest of the archive storehouse, with its front facing west. The building is 5 bays long and 3 bays deep, covers 66 square meters, and carries registration number 20-0238.

The name implies that the Iida household lent money against pledged goods alongside its sake business, although the Agency for Cultural Affairs does not describe how the building was used.

Why It Was Registered

Registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, the Iida Family Residence Pawn Storehouse fills the gap between the reception wing and the archive storehouse, part of the cluster of storehouses east of the main house.

It carries the full specification expected of a Japanese fireproof storehouse: an okiyane roof set above the walls, a band of Namako-kabe tiling, and heavy doors of plastered earth. For a building meant to keep other people's property safe from fire and theft, thick walls and weighty doors were the point.

What to Look For

On the west front, the eye goes to the pair of earthen doors hung in the central doorway. They are finished in black plaster, a reversal of the white walls around them. Built up in layers of clay like the walls themselves, such doors turned the storehouse into a sealed fire compartment when closed.

A tiled pent roof runs the full width of the west face, keeping rain off the doorway and setting the black doors in shadow.

The namako-kabe band invites comparison with the neighbouring archive storehouse, whose tiling is recorded as a tortoiseshell pattern; the description of this building does not specify a pattern. The roof is a tiled Kirizuma-zukuri gable carried as a separate okiyane.

Viewing the Pawn Storehouse

The Iida Family Residence Pawn Storehouse is inside a private residence and its interior is not open.

It stands behind the reception wing, and its west front faces into the grounds, so the black doors are hard to see from any road. Photography is limited to whatever the roads allow.

Directions to the estate and notes on visiting are on the Iida Family Residence page.