A Post Office Faced in Tile
The Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office (旧本庄仲町郵便局, Kyu Honjo Nakamachi Yubinkyoku, also written Kyū-Honjō Nakamachi Yūbinkyoku) is a two-storey timber-framed building at 1-8-2 Chuo in Honjo City, Saitama Prefecture, completed in 1934 and entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 9 October 1998.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the structure in seven words: wooden, two storeys, tiled roof, 158 square metres of floor area. What the record does not convey is the mismatch a visitor notices immediately. The frame is Japanese carpentry. The skin is not. Tile covers the street elevation, laid in flat courses that give the building the flush, hard-edged surface of a small concrete office block, and the detailing carries the geometry of Art Deco, then circulating worldwide. The stair balustrade inside shows it most clearly.
The building went up in 1934 at the expense of Moroi Tsunehei, founder of Chichibu Cement, and it replaced an earlier arrangement that had run in the same family for sixty years.
Japan's modern postal service began in 1871. The following year Maejima Hisoka, the official who built it, went about recruiting local notables to run the network he was extending across the country. In Honjo he approached Moroi Sen'ei, the tenth head of a family that had served the Tokugawa as torimi-yaku, officials responsible for the shogun's falconry grounds. Sen'ei opened the Honjo Post Handling Office in his own house in 1872 and became its first postmaster.
Fire destroyed the Moroi house in 1877. Rebuilding it, Sen'ei sent his carpenters to Yokohama to study the foreign residences there, and the result, finished around 1880, still stands directly behind the post office building: the Moroi Family Residence, with a colonial-style veranda, arched plaster ceilings and coloured glass windows. Saitama Prefecture has designated it a Tangible Cultural Property. It served as both home and post office until the 1934 building took over the public function.
Why the Register Took It
Registration number 11-0008 places this building eighth on Saitama Prefecture's list, entered in the fourteenth round of registrations nationwide, with the public notice issued on 26 October 1998. The Agency files it under government office buildings.
A distinction is worth holding onto here. National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are designated by the state, and altering them requires permission. Registered Tangible Cultural Properties are registered, a category created in 1996 that asks owners only to give notice before substantially changing the exterior. The lighter obligation was deliberate: modern buildings were being lost faster than the designation system could examine them, and many remained in private ownership and active use. The Moroi family company still owns this one.
The registration criterion applied is that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The internal planning explains part of the interest. The ground floor was laid out for postal counter work; the upper floor was built for telegraph and telephone operations. In 1934 those were separate technologies housed under one roof for the first time in this town, and the plan records that moment of convergence.
The other part of the interest is the surface. Rural post offices of the early Showa period were usually plain timber sheds or, at the ambitious end, Western-style buildings in painted wood. A tiled facade on a wooden frame, cut with Deco geometry, was neither. The Agency's own commentary calls the exterior distinctive, and it is the reason the building has been photographed by architecture enthusiasts for decades.
One record discrepancy should be noted. The Agency database gives the owner as Moroi-ke Co., Ltd. (株式会社諸井家), while Cultural Heritage Online lists a limited company of the same name. The national database takes precedence.
The Building's Second Working Life
The post office moved out on 2 December 2019. Operations transferred to a counter inside the Vivamall Honjo shopping centre under the name Vivamall Honjo Post Office, the building closed, and the postbox at the entrance was withdrawn from service. A registered cultural property in a shrinking town centre had lost its tenant, which is how a good many of them are lost outright.
This one found a new occupant. On 21 March 2023 the hat maker W@nder Fabric opened a workshop and shop inside. The label was founded in 2016 by Imai Toshiyuki, from nearby Kamisato, who studied fashion in Tokyo and builds caps from Japanese textiles. Traces of the counter layout remain visible in the retail space, so the postal plan has not been erased so much as re-occupied.
For visitors this means the exterior can be seen at any time from the old Nakasendo, which runs directly past the entrance, and the interior can be seen during shop hours as a customer. Opening times are set by the business rather than by any heritage authority and are best checked in advance through the shop's own channels. Photographing the facade from the public street raises no difficulty; ask before photographing inside.
The Moroi Family Residence behind it is not routinely open to the public. It can be glimpsed from outside, and it has been shown on occasional special openings, but no regular admission is available.
From JR Honjo Station on the Takasaki Line the walk takes roughly ten minutes. Following the old highway a little further southwest brings you to the Former Honjo Commercial Bank Brick Warehouse of the 1890s, which is open free of charge daily. Honjo City lists eight registered properties in total, and this stretch of the Nakasendo holds the concentration of them.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office?
- The building houses the hat workshop and shop W@nder Fabric, so the interior can be seen during business hours as a customer. There is no heritage admission system and no fixed public opening. Hours are set by the shop and should be confirmed in advance. The exterior is visible at any time from the street.
- Does the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office still handle mail?
- No. Postal services moved out on 2 December 2019 to a counter in the Vivamall Honjo shopping centre, now called Vivamall Honjo Post Office. The postbox at the old entrance was withdrawn at the same time.
- Who built the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office, and when?
- Moroi Tsunehei, founder of Chichibu Cement, had it built in 1934. His family had run the local post office since 1872, when Moroi Sen'ei opened a post handling office in his own home at the request of Maejima Hisoka, the architect of Japan's modern postal system.
- What architectural style is the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office?
- The frame is conventional Japanese timber construction with a tiled roof, but the exterior walls are faced in tile and the detailing follows Art Deco geometry, seen for example in the stair balustrade. The combination of a wooden frame with a hard tiled skin is what the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes as distinctive.
- Can the Moroi Family Residence behind the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office be visited?
- Not on a regular basis. The residence, built around 1880 and designated a Tangible Cultural Property by Saitama Prefecture, remains private. It has been opened for occasional special viewings, but there is no standing admission arrangement.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office (旧本庄仲町郵便局) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-8-2 Chuo, Honjo City, Saitama Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 11-0008 |
| Year Designated | Registered 9 October 1998; public notice 26 October 1998 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wooden construction, two storeys, tiled roof; building area 158 m² |
| Owner | Moroi-ke Co., Ltd. |
| Public Access | Exterior viewable from the street at any time. Interior accessible during the business hours of the tenant shop W@nder Fabric; no heritage admission system. Roughly 10 minutes on foot from JR Honjo Station |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000814
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/113694
- Honjo City Board of Education: Registered Tangible Cultural Properties
- https://www.city.honjo.lg.jp/soshiki/kyoikuiinkai/bunkazai/tantoujouhou/bunkazai/1375759852044.html
- Saitama Prefecture: Rediscovering Honjo-juku, the Largest Post Town on the Nakasendo, vol. 5
- https://www.pref.saitama.lg.jp/b0111/midokoro-nakasendou5.html
- Honjo Keizai Shimbun: Cap workshop and shop W@nder Fabric in the former post office
- https://honjo.keizai.biz/headline/592/
- Toyahachi Shoten: The Moroi family and the Former Honjo Nakamachi Post Office
- https://www.toyahachi.com/20230117/
Last verified: 2026.08.10