Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall

What the Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall is

The Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall (萱島酒造木塀, Kayashima Shuzō Mokubei) is a roofed boundary wall built in 1935 at Kayashima Sake Brewery in Tsunai, Kunisaki City, Oita Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on January 16, 1998. It runs 65 meters and is roofed with sheet iron.

The Kayashima Wooden Wall closes off the south side of the brewery site, and the national database classes it as an "other structure." Of the 14 registered structures with a firm date it is the latest, the piece that enclosed a site built up over four decades from 1894.

A brick base and a roofed timber wall

The wall is built in two parts. Its base is laid brick, and on top of that stands a timber wall with its own small roof. Putting brick at ground level keeps the timber clear of damp and rain splash.

The official description spells out the timber section: posts set every ken (about 1.8 meters), Nuki tie beams between them, and slender horizontal laths, mawatashi, run in two tiers above and below. Mawatashi hold the backing of a wall between posts, and the same simple bay repeats along all 65 meters. The roof is sheet iron rather than tile, a light cap for a long, thin structure.

Brick also appears in the octagonal chimney and the posts of the Back Gate, both of 1914. The wall's brick base matches the material of those earlier structures on the south side of the site.

Why the Wooden Wall was registered

The Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The official description says it conveys the prosperity the brewery had enjoyed since the Meiji period.

The wall itself is plain, but its 65-meter length shows how far the brewery grounds extended by the mid-1930s. The main house went up in 1933, and two years later the southern boundary of the Kayashima Sake Brewery site was closed with this long wall.

Seeing the Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall

The Kayashima Sake Brewery Wooden Wall forms the outer boundary of the site and faces outward. If you view it from a nearby road, remember that the ground behind it is the brewery's private property, and do not step onto private land or fields.

Look for the line where brick meets timber, and for the steady rhythm of post, tie beam and lath repeating every ken. For a view from inside the grounds, ask at SAKE GALLERY Tohzai or call the brewery (+81-978-72-1181).