Terada Family Residence (Kashiwara)

What the Terada Family Residence in Kashiwara is

The Terada Family Residence (寺田家住宅) is a late Edo period merchant house in Imamachi, Kashiwara City, Osaka Prefecture, whose seven structures were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 12 July 2005.

The plot is long from west to east. Its western end faces the old Nara Kaido highway; its eastern end lies close to the JR Yamatoji Line. The main house stands on the street frontage, storehouses follow behind it, and a detached wing occupies higher ground towards the east. A water channel crosses the site from north to south, and the land east of it stands a step higher, at the foot of what was once the left bank of the Yamato River.

The family traded under the name Hojoya. In the Edo period they dealt in fertiliser and owned boats on the Kashiwara river route. What makes the Terada Family Residence unusual is that the business left physical traces in the buildings. The lower boarding on the outer wall of the inner storehouse is made from planks salvaged from a Kashiwara river boat.

Hojoya and the Kashiwara boats

Kashiwara boats worked the Yamato River, linking Osaka with the inland Kawachi plain. They carried rice and goods downstream and came back loaded with fertiliser and everyday supplies. Kashiwara was where cargo changed hands between Yamato and Osaka, and a family that owned boats was usually a wholesaler as well.

The Teradas were one such family, trading as Hojoya. Dealing in fertiliser and running boats were two halves of one business conducted from this one plot, which is why storehouses of this size sit at the centre of the site.

In 1704 the course of the Yamato River was redirected in a major public work. The family is said to have moved to Imamachi before that. A position between the highway and the river is what made their trade possible.

How the Terada Family Residence is laid out

Reading the buildings from the street eastwards makes their roles clear.

• On the old Nara Kaido frontage, the main house: a Machiya of Tsushi-nikai type with a gabled Hongawarabuki roof, entered on the long side, 203 square metres in area
• Behind it the inner storehouse, its forebay running continuously into the house, with boat planks used as boarding on the outer wall
• Near the centre of the plot the storehouse and the rice storehouse, the first ranged east to west, the second north to south and facing north with a shed attached on its east side
• Towards the west of the southern boundary the south gate, with a single storage room beside the opening
• At the middle of the eastern boundary the east gate, a small Yakuimon placed to line up with the entrance on the east face of the annex
• On the higher ground at the east end the annex, single storeyed to the north and rising to a half storey in a T-shaped southern part, with formal entrances at the centre of both its east and west faces

Five of the seven were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape, the annex and the inner storehouse as models of design. The first criterion looks at what a building does for the street and the estate, the second at how it is made.

The seven registered structures

The seven structures were listed in the 46th round of registration, numbered consecutively from 27-0321 to 27-0327. All are dated to the late Edo period.

• Main house (27-0321). Timber, single storey, tiled roof, 203 square metres
• Annex (27-0322). Timber, single storey with a two-storey section, tiled roof, 171 square metres
• Inner storehouse (27-0323). Two-storey earthen-walled construction, tiled roof, 29 square metres
• Storehouse (27-0324). Two-storey earthen-walled construction, tiled roof, 29 square metres
• Rice storehouse (27-0325). Single-storey earthen-walled construction, tiled roof, 85 square metres
• South gate (27-0326). Timber, tiled roof, 3.0 metres wide
• East gate (27-0327). Timber, tiled roof, 1.8 metres wide

Accounts of the main house differ a little in how its size is given. Kashiwara City describes a frontage of eight bays and a depth of six. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives a floor area of 203 square metres and does not state bay counts.

Visiting the Terada Family Residence

The Terada Family Residence is an ordinary home, still lived in. Kashiwara City states plainly that it cannot be visited, and there is no access to the grounds.

The exterior is another matter. The main house faces west onto the old Nara Kaido, so its front can be seen from the street: plastered upper walls carried to the eaves, a mushikomado grille window, and a run of timber lattice at ground level. The gates and storehouses stand inside the plot and are not visible from outside.

The nearest station is Kashiwara on the JR Yamatoji Line, about 300 metres to the south, five minutes on foot. Leave by the west side, join the line of the old highway and walk north.

Photography from the public road is fine, with the obvious consideration due to a family home. Enquiries about the property go to the Cultural Property Division of the Kashiwara City Board of Education, on 072-976-3430.