A Storehouse That Came Upriver
Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura (丸高蔵鰍沢蔵, also written Marutaka-gura Kajikazawa Storehouse) is a two-story dozo storehouse at Takashima in Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture, dating from the early Taisho era and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 28 October 2011.
The building runs 26 metres along its ridge with a span of 10 metres and covers 272 square metres. Its gabled roof is clad in sheet iron, the entrance opens on the east face, and the walls are finished in lime plaster with vertical boarding carried high, up to just below the hachimaki band that marks the top of the wall. It stands at the southern end of a row of three registered buildings, immediately below the Kissawa storehouse.
The name is a place name, and it points somewhere specific. Kajikazawa lies in Yamanashi Prefecture on the right bank of the Fuji River, and from the early seventeenth century it was the head of river navigation, the point where cargo transferred between boat and road. Rice went downstream toward Edo and salt came up. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records nothing about the building's origin, but the brewery states that this storehouse stood at Kajikazawa before being dismantled and re-erected in Suwa in 1915. The company's own descriptions differ on what it was there, calling it a grain store in one place and a sake brewery in another.
The Route Between Kajikazawa and Suwa
The connection between those two places is older than the building. Rice from the Suwa and Matsumoto districts of Shinano was carried south to the Fuji River wharves and shipped from there toward the sea, and salt landed at Kajikazawa travelled inland to Shinshu. Suwa and Kajikazawa were two ends of a working supply line for roughly three centuries.
By the 1910s that line was closing. Railways had reached both regions and river freight on the Fuji was in its last decades. Buildings that had served the wharf trade came free at exactly the point when a new miso company in Suwa needed cellars. Whether the two facts are connected in this particular case is not documented, and the safer statement is simply that a storehouse moved in the direction that salt had once travelled.
Registration number 20-0394 was granted under the criterion for structures contributing to the historic character of the national landscape. The official commentary places Kajikazawa-gura in its row, noting that it stands with the shop and the Kissawa storehouse to the north and forms a principal element of a street that retains its historic scene. The building is valued less as an isolated monument than as one third of a streetscape.
Details Worth Noticing
The most rewarding observation here needs both storehouses in view at once. On Kissawa-gura to the north, the vertical boarding stops at waist height. On this building it climbs almost the full height of the wall. Same plot, same construction, same decade, and a different judgement about how much plaster to leave exposed. The taller boarding gives Kajikazawa-gura a darker, heavier face from the street, and in low sun the vertical joints throw a fine ruled pattern across the wall that the neighbouring building does not have.
The roofs differ too. This one is gabled, its neighbour hipped.
Both storehouses put their doors on the east, away from the road, which reads as a plan decision rather than an accident. Goods moved through the yard behind, while the west wall presented an unbroken surface to the town. That is why the street front is as quiet as it is, and why the three buildings hold together visually despite their differences.
Anyone coming to see them should know that the site is a working brewery, closed to visitors. The shop at the north end of the row, Sen no Mizu, closed permanently on 22 February 2024, so there is no longer a reason to enter the grounds and no facility for the public. The row is viewed from the road on the west side, about ten minutes on foot from JR Kamisuwa Station toward Takashima Castle, or fifteen minutes by car from the Suwa interchange of the Chuo Expressway. Photographing the exteriors from the public road is unrestricted.
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Q&A
- Can visitors enter Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura?
- No. It is part of a working brewery on private premises and there is no public interior access. The exterior can be seen from the road on the west side.
- Where does the name Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura come from?
- From Kajikazawa in Yamanashi Prefecture, a wharf town at the head of navigation on the Fuji River. The brewery states that the building stood there before being moved to Suwa in 1915.
- How is Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura different from the storehouse next to it?
- It is smaller, at 272 square metres against 710, its roof is gabled rather than hipped, and its vertical wall boarding runs much higher, nearly to the top of the wall instead of stopping at waist height.
- When was Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura registered, and under what category?
- It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 28 October 2011 under registration number 20-0394, in the same session as the two other buildings on the site.
- How do I reach Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura?
- The site is at Takashima 1-chome in Suwa City, about ten minutes on foot from JR Kamisuwa Station in the direction of Takashima Castle, whose grounds are a short walk further on.
Basic Information
| Name | Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura (丸高蔵鰍沢蔵) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-2952-1 Takashima, Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 20-0394 |
| Year Designated | Registered 28 October 2011 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 26 m along the ridge, 10 m span; floor area 272 sq m; two stories, dozo construction, sheet-iron gabled roof |
| Owner | Ajihyakumi Co., Ltd. (as recorded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs) |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. Exterior viewing from the public road only. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Marutakagura Kajikazawa-gura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00008997
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Marutakagura Kissawa-gura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00008996
- Marutakagura official website
- https://www.suwa-marutaka.jp/
- Shinsyu-ichi Miso: Marutakagura
- https://www.shinsyuichi.jp/marutakagura
- Shinsyu-ichi Miso: notice of the closure of the Sen no Mizu shop
- https://www.shinsyuichi.jp/company/topics/detail/102
Last verified: 2026.08.05