Tanaka Honke Museum Waterwheel Storehouse

What the Tanaka Honke Museum Waterwheel Storehouse Is

The Tanaka Honke Museum Waterwheel Storehouse (田中本家博物館水車蔵, suisha-gura) is a late Meiji-period clay-walled storehouse at the middle of the north edge of the Tanaka merchant estate in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, which once housed a waterwheel, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 19 September 2003.

It is long, about 22.5 metres, and covers 103 square metres, under a gabled roof on an east-west ridge laid in pantiles. It is mostly single-storey with a partial upper level.

Inside are three rooms. The west room has a mezzanine; the others are single-storey. In the east room, water led in by a channel turned a waterwheel.

Why the Waterwheel Storehouse Was Registered

The Tanaka Honke Museum Waterwheel Storehouse was registered as contributing to the historic landscape. It is plastered white all round, with weatherboard skirting on the north and south, and it forms the long white centrepiece of the north row.

What sets it apart is the power it held. A waterwheel inside the estate suggests that processing such as polishing or milling grain was done on the premises. No record found says exactly what the wheel drove, but it fits a family in brewing and the grain trade.

What to Look For: Three Rooms Under One Roof

From outside it reads as one long storehouse, but inside it splits into west, middle and east rooms, and only the west room has a mezzanine. One roof, three jobs.

The east room was the wheel room, where the channel came into the building. Look along the lower east part of the walls for any trace of where the water entered and left.

The inner wall, about 40 metres long, runs to the south, and its gate stands directly south of this storehouse. Step through that gate and the long south face of the Waterwheel Storehouse is right in front of you.

Visiting the Waterwheel Storehouse

The Tanaka Honke Museum Waterwheel Storehouse stands in the middle of the north row. Go north through the gate in the inner wall to see its south face head-on; for the whole 22.5-metre length, look from just before the gate.

The interior is not normally open; ask at reception whether the wheel room can be seen. Opening days and admission are on the Tanaka Honke Museum page.