Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse

What Is the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse?

The Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse (旧井上家住宅中蔵, Kyū-Inoue-ke Jūtaku Nakagura) is a late Edo-period earthen storehouse on a village headman's estate in Kusaka, Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 15 August 2024.

Standing just north of the Inner Storehouse, the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse was used for furnishings and other household goods. It rises from a stone retaining wall near the west side of the estate and faces east. Its building area is 20 square meters, and it is dated to the late Edo period, between 1830 and 1868.

A Storehouse on the Estate Wall

The Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse is registration number 27-0919, entered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the way it towers above the stone wall and forms part of the outer edge of the estate.

The Inoue estate is built on a slope below Mount Ikoma, with high stone walls on its west and north sides. Because the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse sits right on top of that wall, the masonry and the white storehouse wall read from outside as a single rising face. It is the middle one of the three storehouses that line the west side, between the Inner Storehouse and the North Storehouse.

How the Middle Storehouse Is Built

The Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse is two storeys high, with a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof and its entrance on the long side, toward the south end of the east face. The tiled roof is an Okiyane, set as a separate layer on top of the sealed earthen body.

The walls are plastered in Shikkui, with a skirt of Tateita-bari vertical boarding along the base, a common way of shielding the lower wall from rain splash.

Both floors are boarded. In the roof, short posts on the gable beams carry the ridge and purlins, and the purlins are curved timbers used in their natural shape rather than sawn straight, a detail the Agency notes for this storehouse alone among the twelve.

Visiting the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse

The Former Inoue Family Residence, including the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse, is not open to the public. The grounds cannot be entered, and the curved roof timbers are not visible from outside.

Since the Former Inoue Family Residence Middle Storehouse stands on the wall that forms the estate boundary, it is seen together with the stonework from the west side of the property. Directions are on the Former Inoue Family Residence page.