Former Shizutani School Stone Wall

A boundary drawn in cut stone

The Former Shizutani School Stone Wall is a cut-stone enclosure at Shizutani in Bizen City, Okayama Prefecture, raised around 1701 and designated an Important Cultural Property on 4 July 1938. It starts at either side of the school gate, follows the folds of the valley floor, and returns to itself after 764.9 metres of bending course.

The school inside opened in 1670. Ikeda Mitsumasa, lord of the Okayama domain, wanted somewhere the sons of farmers and townspeople could study, not only the sons of samurai, and he put his retainer Tsuda Nagatada in charge of building it. Mitsumasa died in 1682 having left instructions that the school was to continue in perpetuity. Tsuda spent the following two decades rebuilding the place in materials chosen for endurance rather than for speed, and the Former Shizutani School Stone Wall belongs to that second campaign. Bizen City's chronology of the school places the start of work on the wall in 1701, the same year the present lecture hall was completed.

Bizen City's account of the buildings credits the masonry to Kawachiya Jihee, a stonemason from Kawachi, and is careful to record this as something handed down rather than documented.

Why a wall received national protection

Perimeter walls seldom stand as heritage in their own right. This one does. The Former Shizutani School Stone Wall was designated an Important Cultural Property on 4 July 1938, holds its own entry and register number in the national database, and has its own listed owners: Okayama Prefecture together with Shizutani Shrine. It is recorded separately from the halls it surrounds.

The register entry is terse and worth reading closely. It describes a stone-built wall that begins to the left and right of the school gate, encircles the grounds, and runs 764.9 metres when its bends are counted. That single line carries the argument for designation. A boundary of that length, cut and fitted to hold its line across sloping ground for three centuries, is a piece of civil engineering as much as an architectural element, and it survives with no reconstruction of its overall run.

The ground within is a Special Historic Site, and the wall is where that protected area meets the hillside. Visitors coming up the approach road meet the stonework before they meet anything else, which is roughly the effect Tsuda intended.

What to look at along the wall

The profile is the first thing to register. Rather than finishing flat or with a coping course, the top of the Former Shizutani School Stone Wall was chiselled into a rounded ridge, a shape Japanese descriptions compare to a steamed fish cake. Bizen City's account gives the height as roughly two metres and the width as about 1.9 metres, and identifies the material as sedimentary stone worked with a chisel.

Look at the joints in raking morning light. The blocks are not uniform, and no two courses repeat, yet the seams close so tightly that nothing has taken root in them. That is partly a matter of what is hidden. The wall's core was packed with crushed stone that had been washed first, so that no seed travelled inside with the fill. Three centuries on, the surface carries lichen but almost no weeds.

Drainage explains much of the rest. The buildings sit on levelled ground against a hillside, and Bizen City's description sets out how rainwater was handled: the broad yard was graded southwards to send water towards the wall, culverts were laid beneath it, and the water was gathered into well-shaped pits packed with crushed stone down to bedrock before discharging outside the wall. The stonework is not only a boundary. It is the last element in a drainage system.

One figure needs explaining, because visitors meet both versions on site. The national register gives 764.9 metres, the length of the designated wall around the school grounds. Bizen City gives a total of 846 metres, a figure that includes the section running out to Tsubakiyama, the mound east of the precinct. Neither number is wrong; they measure different extents.

The outer face can be followed on foot from the car park towards the gate, and the inner face runs the length of the walk between the lecture hall and the museum at the far end of the grounds. In late autumn the maples above the wall turn, and the grey stone with colour behind it is the picture most visitors come away with.

Visiting the Former Shizutani School Stone Wall

The site is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closes only from 29 to 31 December. Admission is 400 yen for adults, 200 yen for visitors aged 65 and over, and 100 yen for elementary and junior high school pupils. Parking is free.

The outer face of the Former Shizutani School Stone Wall can be seen without paying, since the reception desk stands inside it, and the approach gives a good sense of the run and the rounded top. Admission is needed to walk the inner face and to see how the wall relates to the yard and the halls. Photography of the buildings and grounds is permitted; the museum asks visitors not to photograph the documents on display. Eating and drinking inside the precinct are not allowed, and pets cannot be brought in, with the usual exception for assistance dogs after enquiry.

By train, take the Sanyo Line to Yoshinaga Station, then a city bus to the Shizutani School stop, about ten minutes, or a taxi, about eight minutes. From Bizen-Katakami Station on the Ako Line a taxi takes about fifteen minutes. Drivers arriving on the Sanyo Expressway need about fifteen minutes from the Bizen interchange.

Allow an hour for the grounds if the wall is the main reason for the visit. Walking the full outer line takes longer than most people expect.