Tsutsui Family Residence Earthen Wall

What Is the Tsutsui Family Residence Earthen Wall?

The Tsutsui Family Residence Earthen Wall (筒井家住宅土塀, Tsutsui-ke Jūtaku Dobei) is a tile-capped earthen wall enclosing the east garden of the Tsutsui estate in Nakamozucho, Kita-ku, Sakai City, Osaka; dated by the national register to the mid-Edo period, it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 3, 2020.

The wall runs for a total of 134 meters. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it sets off from the west part of the gate row house's south side, heads east, turns south, runs east again, then turns north to end at the northeast corner of the storehouse. A small wicket gate (Kugurido) opens midway along the east side. The agency classes it simply as an earthen wall, while Sakai City describes it as a tsuijibei, the roofed rammed-earth wall type.

Why It Was Registered: The Estate as It First Took Shape

The Tsutsui Family Residence Earthen Wall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The agency says it preserves the look of the property from the time the estate took its present form.

Sakai City describes the wall as running around the property and expressing the character of a reclamation family's compound. The agency, by contrast, speaks of a wall enclosing the east garden; exactly which lengths the registration covers is worth confirming with local sources.

How It Was Built: Clay Balls and Bracketed Eaves

The roof is laid in round and flat tiles (Hongawarabuki). The core of the wall is dango-zumi, clay kneaded into balls and stacked, finished with a coarse coat of plaster. Posts set into the core carry projecting brackets, and a beam laid across their ends holds up the eaves. Because timber rather than earth alone carries the roof, the heavy tiled eaves can reach well out from the wall.

The wall's many right-angle turns may be telling. Shigeatsu Shimizu's 2025 paper notes that the point where the south side turns south lines up exactly with the north-south line where the main house meets the zashiki wing. The estate seems to have been only about the western half of its present size until the late seventeenth century, and this line may preserve that old boundary.

Sakai City suggests the zigzagging walls and paths recall castle defenses and may have been meant to display a family lineage linked to the warrior class.

Visiting

The Tsutsui Family Residence Earthen Wall encloses a private home, and the grounds are not open to the public. Please do not enter, touch or climb the wall.

A photograph is available on the Agency for Cultural Affairs database, which dates the wall to the mid-Edo period and enters 1661 to 1751 in its dates column. Access and visiting conditions are covered on the Tsutsui Family Residence page.