Uchino Family Residence (Hirado)

The layout of the Uchino Family Residence

The Uchino Family Residence (内野家住宅, Uchino-ke Jūtaku) is a house in the former samurai quarter of Iwanoue-chō, Hirado City, Nagasaki Prefecture, where late-Edo stone steps and a gate-and-wall frontage were joined in 1926 by a new main house and a brick garden wall; all four structures were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2005.

The plot lies on the west side of a road running north and south. A stone retaining wall lines the roadside, topped by a white Dobei earthen wall. Ten stone steps climb up off the road to a pair of gateposts, and beyond them the entrance of the main house faces east. The reception wing stretches north of the house, and on its east side a small garden sits inside a brick wall laid out in a U shape.

Two periods meet here. The stone steps date from the late Edo period (1751 to 1829), and the gate and roadside wall are late-Edo work that was remodelled around 1926. The main house and the brick wall were built in 1926 itself. Read together, the Uchino property looks like a samurai-quarter frontage that was kept while the home behind it was rebuilt at the very end of the Taishō era.

A feature on a Japanese garden website relays the family's account that the stone steps and stone wall in front of the entrance already appear on a map of the Bunka era (1804 to 1818). That fits the late-Edo date given by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, but the map itself has not been published.

The four registered structures of the Uchino Family Residence

All four parts of the Uchino Family Residence were entered on the national register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on February 9, 2005, under consecutive numbers 42-0040 to 42-0043. Each was judged on a different criterion. The main house counts as a model of form, the brick wall as something not easily reproduced, and the gate-and-wall and the stone steps as contributions to the historic landscape.

• Main house: 1926, wooden, single storey with a partial second floor, building area 192 m²
• Gate and wall: late Edo, remodelled around 1926; gate opening 2.3 m, wall length 43 m
• Stone steps: late Edo, 10 steps of stone, area 13 m²
• Brick wall: around 1926, Slag brick (slag brick), length 18 m

The agency describes the main house as a modern Japanese-style home that carries on the lineage of samurai residences. The road face kept its Edo character, while the house and garden behind it were reworked in the 1920s, and seeing all four parts in turn makes that layering easy to follow.

Visiting the Uchino Family Residence

The Uchino Family Residence is a private home, and neither the interior nor the garden is normally open. From the road you can see the stone steps, the gateposts and the roadside wall. The steps belong to the property, so please look from the street rather than climbing them, and keep any photographs to the exterior as seen from the road.

The garden has been opened on special occasions. The Hirado Niwa o Mamoru Kai, a group of owners of former samurai houses in Hirado, ran the Hirado Oniwa Meguri, a garden tour timed for the azalea season. According to a garden website, the Uchino garden took part, but the joint openings stopped after 2019. Check if they have resumed before planning a visit around them.

The Uchino Family Residence is in central Hirado, about 1 km south of the Hirado Sanbashi bus terminal and about 700 m south-southeast of Hirado City Hall, both measured in a straight line. Look for a stretch of stone wall and white plaster wall on the west side of a north-south street; the ten steps and the gateposts open off it.