Former Yamate Village Office

What Is the Former Yamate Village Office?

The Former Yamate Village Office is a thatched house of the early Meiji period, built as the home of the first head of Yamate Village and used as the village office from 1902 to 1968, now standing in Kanbayashi, Soja City, Okayama Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on October 2, 2007.

In Japanese it is 旧山手村役場 (Kyū Yamate-son Yakuba). The former Yamate Village is now part of Soja City.

Soja City records that the house was built in Jitō-Katayama, in the former village, as the residence of Kazahaya Unshō (風早雲嶂), who became the first village head. Okayama Prefecture places the original site near today's Yamate branch office of Soja City. From 1902 the village used the house as its office, and it kept that role until 1968, more than 60 years in all. In 1972 the building was taken down, moved to its present site and restored. Okayama Prefecture owns it.

Why the Former Yamate Village Office Is Registered

The Former Yamate Village Office is entry 33-0162 in the national register, added in the 56th round of registrations under the criterion of having become a model of design. The agency records a single-storey timber house with a thatched roof and a building area of 169 square meters, with wing walls and a middle gate attached.

The house is 7.5 bays long (Ketayuki) and 5 bays deep (Harima). Its main roof is a thatched hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri, Kayabuki), and lower lean-to roofs (Geya) laid with formal round-and-flat tiles (Hongawarabuki) run around all four sides. In front of the formal rooms, the edge of the house is an earthen-floored veranda (tsuchien) rather than a raised wooden one.

At the front is a shikidai, a low formal step at the entrance that marked a house where guests of standing were received. Inside, the right side is the earthen-floored doma and the left side holds four rooms in the Yomadori layout. The agency notes that the ridge, finished in tile on top of the thatch (iraka-mune), expresses the status of the household. Soja City describes the Former Yamate Village Office as a building that keeps the character of an early Meiji house and that was long familiar to local people as a landmark of the village.

What to Look For at the Former Yamate Village Office

The shikidai entrance

Start at the front of the Former Yamate Village Office. The shikidai at the entrance is the clearest sign that this was not an ordinary farmhouse: it was the formal way in for visitors, separate from the everyday route through the doma on the right.

Thatch, tile and the ridge

Step back to take in the roof. The thatched hip-and-gable sits on a skirt of heavy round-and-flat tiles on every side, and the ridge itself is capped in tile. That combination of thatch with formal tilework is what gives the house its weight.

The earthen veranda and the gate

Along the side where the formal rooms are, look for the tsuchien, the strip of earthen floor under the eaves in front of the rooms. The wing walls and the middle gate that come with the house complete the approach and make it read more like a gentry residence than an office.

Visiting the Former Yamate Village Office

The Former Yamate Village Office stands at the foot of the steps below the Soja Kibiji Bunkakan museum, beside the Former Matsui Family Residence Main House. There is a pond behind the village office, and from the pond side you can see the house from the back as well.

Official sources do not say whether visitors may go inside the Former Yamate Village Office, and no photography policy is published, so follow any notices on site. Viewing hours and directions for both houses are gathered on the page for the Former Yamate Village Office and Former Matsui Family Residence.