Miyazaki Shoten

Miyazaki Shoten

Miyazaki Shoten (宮崎商店) is a traditional brewery in Kaminomachi, Shimabara City, Nagasaki Prefecture, whose store, shochu storehouse and chimney, all built in 1906, were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) on July 1, 2003 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). All three belong to the Miyazaki Shoten Limited Partnership and carry consecutive registration numbers, 42-0026 to 42-0028.

A year later, on April 30, 2004, Nagasaki Prefecture listed the three as a single townscape asset (Nagasaki Prefecture). Shimabara City's cultural property plan counts them among the modern merchant buildings of the Moritake district, the old castle town around Shimabara Castle, which the plan treats as its main area for conservation.

A Corner Plot on the Shimabara Road

The store stands on the west side of the old Shimabara Road, on a corner where a lane runs south toward the castle (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Its street-front shop wing and a taller wing of tatami rooms to the north meet in an L.

West of the store, at the south end of the plot, is the two-storey shochu storehouse, built in the clay-walled Dozo-zukuri manner and turning its south gable toward a gentle slope. The brick chimney rises north of the old kettle room behind the store and just south of the former Kojimuro, or koji room, that adjoins the storehouse (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Shop in front, storehouse and chimney behind: the plan of a Meiji-era brewery is still legible on one plot.

The store and the storehouse were the work of the same master carpenter, 荒木輝美雄 (Araki), and in the storehouse's case a Munafuda ridge tag confirms it (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The construction and size of each structure are covered on its own page.

Brewing in a Town of Springs

Shimabara has long been called a city of water, and more than 50 springs rise within its limits (Shimabara City). The city's cultural property plan names local sake among the food traditions built on spring water, and places the three Miyazaki Shoten structures, along with the buildings of the Kato Shuzo brewery, in its story of water and the people who lived by it.

Getting There

Miyazaki Shoten lies about 160 metres northeast of the Shimabara Castle site in a straight line (estimated from map coordinates). Shimabara City puts the castle about a 10-minute walk from Shimabara Station on the Shimabara Railway, so the brewery is an easy detour on foot from a castle visit.

All three structures are privately owned by the Miyazaki Shoten Limited Partnership, and no official information on interior access or visits was found as of October 2026. Their exteriors can be seen from the Shimabara Road and the lane to the south.