Nagano Meijo East Storehouse

The Carpenter's Store Beside the Gate

The Nagano Meijo East Storehouse (長野銘醸東土蔵, Nagano Meijō Higashi-dozō) is a late Edo-period single-storey storehouse on the northern edge of the Nagano Meijo sake brewery in Yahata, Chikuma City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 19, 2014.

It was built between 1830 and 1868 and altered in 1926. The plan is square, 5.5 metres by 5.5 metres, for a building area of 30 square metres, and the tiled roof turns a hipped-gable Irimoya-zukuri end toward the street. The registration number is 20-0474.

It sits right next to the brewery's Nagayamon gatehouse, on its west side, facing the old Zenkoji Road (the Hokkoku Nishi Waki Okan). Twelve of the brewery's buildings were registered together in 2014.

Where the Vats Were Mended

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Nagano Meijo East Storehouse began life as a carpenter's shed, where the wooden vats used in brewing were repaired.

For centuries sake was fermented and stored in large cedar tubs, kioke, bound with bamboo hoops. Staves shrink, hoops fray, and a brewery with dozens of vats needed someone on site to keep them tight season after season, until enamel-lined steel tanks took over. This building was that someone's workplace: part of the machinery of brewing, even if no sake was ever made inside it.

The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape, and the description credits the storehouse with keeping the street frontage of the old estate intact alongside the gatehouse.

What to Look For

A Dressed-Up Gable

For a humble work shed, the Nagano Meijo East Storehouse makes an effort toward the road. Instead of a plain gable, the street end has an irimoya roof, the eaves wrapping around before the small gable sits on top. It gives the facade a finished, almost residential look beside the gatehouse.

A Square Workshop

At 5.5 metres on each side, the floor is close to a perfect square, a practical shape for rolling in a large vat and working around it. That reading is a reasonable guess; no source found here states that the plan was chosen for the purpose.

Gate and Storehouse Together

From the road the East Storehouse and the gatehouse read as one frontage, which is how a prosperous brewing family presented itself to travellers. The Nagano Meijo West Storehouse stands farther west along the same boundary, and a short walk lets you compare the two.

Visiting the Nagano Meijo East Storehouse

Because it faces the road, the Nagano Meijo East Storehouse can be viewed from the street without entering the property, and the irimoya roof end is best seen from there. There is no notice of the interior being open.

Directions to the brewery and the arrangements for tours, open days and photography are covered on the Nagano Meijo page.