Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall

About the Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall

The Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall (山野家住宅土塀, Yamano-ke Jūtaku Dobei) is a Taisho-era clay boundary wall enclosing a sake-brewing family's compound in Kisabe, Katano City, Osaka Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2003.

It starts at the west end of the gatehouse and follows the edge of the property, changing direction as it goes, until it reaches a point south of the domestic storehouse. It runs 47 metres in all. The wall stands on a cut-stone base laid right at the edge of the roadside gutter, with a moulded band along the top and a roof of Hongawarabuki round-and-flat tiles.

If the gatehouse is the compound's formal front, the Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall is what carries that front around the corner, forming the base of the street view where the gables of the brewery and storehouse line up.

Why It Was Registered

The wall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as careful work throughout, citing the foundation stones and the moulded band that is carried around even the north end, and says the finish at the intermediate coat of clay gives it a character of its own.

A traditional clay wall is built up in layers: a rough base coat, an intermediate coat, then a fine top coat. The Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall stops at the intermediate stage. That coat is coarser than a top coat, so the colour and grain of the earth itself show on the surface, a quieter texture than the white plaster of the gatehouse and storehouses.

The moulded band, known as jabara, is a stack of stepped courses plastered along the top of a wall. It is decorative, and it also throws rainwater clear of the face below. Wrapping it around the end of a wall takes extra effort, and the fact that it continues even at the north end, where few people would look, speaks to the quality of the work.

What to Look For

This is the one structure in the compound you can follow on foot. Start at the west end of the gatehouse, walk along the wall, turn the corner and head north, and you will have traced all 47 metres.

At ground level, look at the cut-stone base by the gutter and the foundation stones above it. They lift the clay clear of damp and take the wear where the wall meets the road, its most vulnerable point.

Raise your eyes and the jabara and tiled coping form a single continuous line. Beyond it the gables of the storehouse, Sake Brewery 4 and Sake Brewery 1 appear one after another. The wall acts as a horizontal band beneath them, pulling the whole street front of the Yamano Family Residence together.

Visiting

The Yamano Family Residence Earthen Wall faces the public road, so its outer side can be viewed from the street. The inside of the wall and the grounds are a private home and a working brewery, and cannot be entered.

Take photographs from the road. A wall finished at the intermediate coat is easily damaged, so please do not touch it or lean against it.