Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses

Two Storehouses Along the Southern Edge

Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses (飯盛酒造一号蔵及び二号蔵, Iimori Shuzō Ichigōgura oyobi Nigōgura) are a pair of late Taisho-era brewery storehouses on the southern edge of the Iimori Sake Brewery lot at 122 Furueda Ko, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 3, 2006. The registration covers two quite different buildings, a two-storey earth-walled storehouse and a single-storey timber shed, and counts them as a single building.

Together they have a building area of 365 square meters, the largest of the five registered Iimori buildings. The No. 1 Storehouse runs east to west along the southern boundary; the No. 2 Storehouse, east of it, closes the gap between the No. 1 Storehouse and the brick koji room in the southeast corner of the lot.

How the Iimori Storehouses Are Built

The Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses were registered as buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, on the same day as the main house, the No. 3 Storehouse, the koji room and the chimney.

The No. 1 Storehouse is a large earth-walled building 10 ken long and 6 ken deep (a ken is roughly 1.8 meters), under a gabled roof laid with pantiles. Its earthen walls are sheathed on the outside with vertical boards. The roof is carried on a traditional Japanese frame, a Wagoya in which short posts stand on the beams to hold up the purlins.

The No. 2 Storehouse is a single-storey timber building with a lean-to roof that slopes one way only. Its plan is a trapezoid, and its roof is framed with a Truss. A Japanese roof frame in one building and a Western truss in its neighbour, under one registration, is what sets the Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses apart.

The dates are disputed. The Agency for Cultural Affairs puts both in the late Taisho era, while Kashima City's historic character plan, citing a 1999 survey report, dates the No. 1 Storehouse to 1928 and the No. 2 Storehouse to 1915. The same plan describes the No. 1 Storehouse as standing on its own behind a pressing house attached to the main house. This page follows the Agency and gives the plan's dates as an alternative record.

What to Look For at the Iimori No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses

On the No. 1 Storehouse, the thing to notice is the boarded wall, 10 ken of it. Sakagura-dōri is known for its white plastered storehouses, but this one wears a coat of vertical planks. Boarding of this kind is generally used on earth-walled storehouses to keep rain and wind off the plaster.

The No. 2 Storehouse bridges the step down from the two-storey No. 1 Storehouse to the single-storey koji room with a low roof falling in one direction. That falling roof and the trapezoidal plan are probably the result of fitting a connecting building into the shape of the plot.

Visiting the Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses

The Iimori Sake Brewery No. 1 and No. 2 Storehouses stand on the south side of the lot, hidden behind the main house and almost invisible from the old Tara road. There is no published offer to show their interiors. The Kashima City Tourism Association says the business still cures its pickles in the Taisho-period storehouses, but it does not say which ones.

According to Kashima City, a lane beside the Iimori garage leads to the Former Norita Residence. That lane is the likeliest way to glimpse the storehouses from outside the lot, but how much of them it reveals has not been confirmed. Ask at the shop before stepping onto the premises. Directions and opening hours are on the Iimori Sake Brewery page.