Mizote Family Residence Pickle Shed

A Long Work Shed on the Lane

Mizote Family Residence Pickle Shed (溝手家住宅漬物小屋, Mizote-ke Jūtaku Tsukemono-goya) is a single-storey timber work building from about 1921 on a wealthy farming family's estate in Hayashima, Okayama Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

It follows the eastern edge of a strip of the site that juts out to the north, under a pantiled roof, with a footprint of 40 square metres. As the name suggests, it was presumably where the household prepared and stored its pickles. The plan is long and narrow, and its long side faces a lane outside the compound.

Why It Was Registered

The shed was registered under number 33-0345 for its contribution to the historic landscape; the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes how its length defines the character of the lane.

A Taishō-era work shed made the list because the estate kept not only its house and storehouses but also the service buildings that made daily life run. The Mizote Family Residence Pickle Shed is the most practical expression of the advisory report's point that the compound survives as a whole.

What to Look For

The roof is hipped at the north end and gabled at the south, so the building changes shape depending on which way you walk along the lane.

A partition divides the interior a third of the way from the south end, and the southern room includes a well room, which kept the wet work together. The walls show their posts in shinkabe fashion and were left at the intermediate plaster coat, without a finishing layer.

Inside, the roof is carried on evenly spaced king post trusses, a Western triangulated frame built around a central vertical post. Its use in a humble Taishō-era shed is the structural point of interest in the Mizote Family Residence Pickle Shed.

Visiting

The Mizote Family Residence Pickle Shed belongs to a private home and its interior is closed. It runs along the east edge of the northern strip of the site, with its long side facing the lane.

As the Agency's note suggests, this is one of the buildings you can see from outside, from the lane. The lane is used by residents, so step aside for passers-by if you stop.