Menzan Atsushi Residence West Wall

Mezan Atsushi Residence, West Wall

The village of Saho lies in the hills north of Ibaraki City, in Osaka Prefecture, and its historic core is the Mezan Atsushi Residence. In December 2000, eight buildings and structures of the estate were added to Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties.

On the western side of the grounds, where the land drops away to a steep road, a shorter roofed wall about 11 meters long is set on top of the stone base. Built in 1912, it works with the stonework below it to hold the estate's most exposed edge.

Why It Is Registered

The wall answers to the slope. Along the northern stretch, where the drop to the road is slight, it is built high; further south, where it already sits on a tall run of stone, it is kept low, so the top line stays even against a falling grade. Posts rise every half a ken beneath a pantile roof, matching the estate's other walls.

What to Look For

Seen from the road below, the west wall and the stone base beneath it read as one tall boundary, the face the compound turns to the valley. The wall is registered for its part in that western streetscape, a small structure whose placement counts for more than its size.

The Mezan Atsushi Residence is a private home, and its interior is not open to visitors. The village lanes, however, pass close by the walls, storehouses and stone base that face the public road, so the streetscape can be taken in from outside without entering the grounds. For displays on the wider history of the area, the Ibaraki City Cultural Property Museum in the city center is open to the public.