Ninomiya Family Residence No. 2 Rice Storehouse

A Rice Store Twelve Bays Long

The Ninomiya Family Residence No. 2 Rice Storehouse (二宮家住宅二号米蔵, Ninomiya-ke Jūtaku Nigō Komegura) is a single-storey timber rice store built in 1902 in Hasuno, Seirō Town, Niigata Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2006. It has a tiled roof and a building area of 183 square metres.

It measures 12 bays by 4 and a half bays and runs east to west. The roof is a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of pantiles, built as a separate cover set over the storehouse body, and the entrance is on the long side (Hirairi). A deep eave, the Tsuchibisashi, shelters the south face so that bales could be moved in rain or snow.

Its lot, 1107-1, is separate from the 1087 plot that holds the family's Main House and storehouses. It stands north-east of the No. 1 Rice Storehouse of 1875 on the neighbouring lot, and the two rice stores form a pair.

Why It Was Registered

The Ninomiya Family Residence No. 2 Rice Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape; the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a rice store on a scale fitting a great farming family.

The Ninomiyas had been village headmen under the Shibata domain and grew into one of Niigata's largest landowners after the Meiji Restoration. By the family's account their land passed 968 chō in 1917. Rent was paid in rice by tenant farmers, and this second store presumably followed the first as the holdings grew toward their peak in the Taisho years.

The structure shows its date. Like the No. 1 store, it keeps a raised floor to fight damp, but its roof is carried on a King post truss, a Western triangular frame that spans wide rooms without interior posts. By the late Meiji period the technique was spreading to rural storehouses, and here it sits inside an entirely traditional shell.

What to Look For

Length is the first impression: 12 bays comes to roughly 22 metres, far longer than any of the estate's plastered storehouses. The strip under the south eave was the working floor where rice was loaded and unloaded.

Look up under the eaves to see where roof meets body. A separately built "placed" roof of this kind is common on storehouses and is generally said to leave an air layer that keeps out summer heat and flying sparks.

Visiting

The Ninomiya Family Residence No. 2 Rice Storehouse is privately owned and its interior is not open. It stands on a separate lot, 1107-1, apart from the 1087 plot with the Main House, and the family does not say whether it is on the route of the garden opening.

Do not enter the lot, and follow the guidance given during the opening. The long roofs of the two rice storehouses side by side are the thing to look for.