Yoshikawa Family Residence

A Sake Brewery at Taketa with Five Registered Buildings

The Yoshikawa Family Residence stands at 21 and adjoining lots, Taketa-machi, Taketa City, Oita Prefecture, a sake brewer's premises where 5 buildings were entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 2 October 2007. They are registered properties rather than designated ones. The oldest, warehouse one, warehouse two and the storehouse, date from 1878.

The 5 are the main house, warehouses one, two and three, and the storehouse.

The Agency records the main house as the shop and dwelling of a long-established brewer.

A Building for Each Stage of Brewing

Within one set of grounds, the buildings divide by the stage of the work.

Of warehouse two, the Agency records a furnace place for steaming rice, a washing room with its well, a store for keeping the sake, and a rest room and sleeping room for the brewery workers: a set of buildings needed for the trade.

Warehouse three was the room where rice mould was raised, with an earthen floor, and keeps traces of that room within. It carried one stage of the brewing, the record says. Such a room is kept warm for the mould to grow.

Warehouse one was used as the place where sake was made and as a store for it. The storehouse held rice below and lumber above.

Rice is stored, washed, steamed, made into mould, brewed and kept. Each stage has its building.

At Obaraya Harada Shoten, stores are named for what they hold, oil and salt. Here the buildings divide not by what is held but by the stage of the work.

Warehouses Told Apart as One, Two and Three

Three warehouses are distinguished by number.

Warehouse one stands west of the main house, facing the street. Warehouse two stands behind warehouse one. Warehouse three stands toward the back of the grounds on the south-west.

The numbers run from the street inward. It is position, not use, that the order of names follows.

At the Akagi residence, two walls are told apart as one and two; there the difference was in roofing, tile and sheet iron.

Here the three warehouses each carry a different stage: brewing, washing and storing, and the raising of mould.

Warehouse one covers 114 square metres, warehouse two 179 and warehouse three 86, so the numbers do not run with size.

Stores of the Meiji Period, a Main House of the Taisho

The buildings for brewing and the building for shop and home date from different times.

Warehouses one and two and the storehouse date from 1878, warehouse three from 1908, and the main house from 1921, with an addition in 1922. Warehouse two was also extended in 1908.

The brewing buildings belong to the Meiji period and the shop and dwelling to the Taisho. A newer main house stands among older stores.

At Araso, the shop and main house dates from 1824 and the shopfront storehouse from 1901: there the shop building is the older.

Here it is the other way about: the working buildings came first, and the shop and home were rebuilt later.

The Agency records the main house standing on the corner of the grounds at a crossroads.

Visiting

The property is at 21 and adjoining lots, Taketa-machi, Taketa City, Oita Prefecture. All 5 carry the same address.

Of warehouse one, the Agency records that, continuing from the main house, it shows a long prospect of white walls and forms a bearing of quiet interest. Of the storehouse, that with the main house it makes a prospect fitting a brewer.

The main house covers 209 square metres, warehouse two 179, warehouse one 114, warehouse three 86 and the storehouse 41.

Warehouse three is owned by Taketa City. No owner is recorded for the others.

Opening and terms follow the owners' arrangements. Check before travelling.