Meiji
明治Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Meiji period (1868 – 1912). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
The Arai headman estate's smallest building, in Hidaka, Saitama: a mid-Meiji clay storehouse on stones, with storage jars sunk into its earth floor for food.
Built in 1906 for the Arai headman family's guests in Hidaka, Saitama, this two-storey hall has a carved karahafu porch and alcoved guest rooms facing Kinchakuda.
The Arai headman family's main house in Hidaka, Saitama: a 23-meter, six-room farmhouse whose two west rooms hold alcove, shelves and desk. Tiled in 1993.
An 1888 barn on the stone wall of the Arai headman estate in Hidaka, Saitama. White plaster, boarding and barred windows echo a gatehouse under upturned eaves.
A mid-Meiji clay storehouse for household goods on the Arai headman estate in Hidaka, Saitama, with a floating gabled roof, gable-end door and large lean-to.
The Meiji Storehouse of the former Kagamiyama sake brewery in Kawagoe, a 21-metre storehouse with a great south gable, held the koji room and now sells souvenirs.
An 1894 two-storey earthen storehouse on a headman's estate in Koshigaya, Saitama, known for floor beams set flush with the boards and a plastered fire door.
The 1886 gatehouse of a village headman's estate in Koshigaya, Saitama, and its oldest building, with grey soot-tinted plaster walls and single-board zelkova doors.
An 1888 barn on a headman's estate in Koshigaya, Saitama, split between an earth-floored miso room open to the rafters and a boarded tool room with a ceiling.
A brick warehouse built in Meiji-era Honjo to hold silk cocoons pledged as bank collateral. Iron-shuttered windows, a king post truss roof, free entry since 2017.
Moved from Ogose in 1957, the Main House of the Former Wada Residence in Tokorozawa kept an unusually wide earth floor for spreading tea leaf. Registered 2013.
Raised in 1902 as a silkworm shed and rebuilt for tea in 1951, this Tokorozawa workshop still shows the line shafting, propeller vent and slatted racks.
Dating to about 1887 and moved by hikiya around 1902, this Tokorozawa storehouse keeps a deep sheltered noki-ba where picked tea leaf was spread to dry.
The early Meiji sacred dance stage at Hisaizu Shrine in Koshigaya, Saitama. Fan rafters in bunched clusters shade its front eaves, and kagura is danced here still.
The Gyoda main store of Jumangoku Fukusaya, a storehouse-style shop of 1883 on an old highway in Gyoda, Saitama, is plastered all over under large ridge plaques.
A barn of about 1870 on the Takazawa estate in Gyoda, Saitama, known as the shinoya, with a work floor of earth below and a silkworm loft vented by high windows.
A single-story wing added around 1897 on the Takazawa estate in Gyoda, Saitama, for the master: three eight-mat rooms with alcoves under a half-hipped roof.
Flat single-span stone arch of 1889 on the old Isesaki road in Honjo, Saitama, with pentagonal voussoirs; the oldest stone arch bridge still in use in Saitama.
Village kabuki stage of 1899 at Yasaka Shrine in Tochiya, Chichibu, Saitama, with a fully opening front and a movable raised platform; a rare regional shrine stage.
A brick-and-timber building of about 1900 on a Kawaguchi estate in Saitama, where a foundry owner ran the prefecture's first electric lighting. Flemish bond.