Himurean

A townhouse at the western end of the old highway

Himurean is a Machiya townhouse property on the former Kyo Kaido highway in Nishimotocho, Omihachiman, Shiga Prefecture, whose main house of the early 19th century and six later structures were entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1998. The name is read Himure-an.

Most visitors to Omihachiman walk the Shinmachi street and the Hachimanbori canal, at the foot of Mount Hachiman. Himurean sits a few hundred metres west of all that, in a quieter stretch of Nishimotocho where the old road toward Kyoto ran. The database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes this western pocket of the old town as a place where the earlier streetscape survives with unusual completeness.

Seven items carry the registration: the main house, the zashiki reception wing, the former washing room, the annex, the east storehouse, the west storehouse and the high wall. Their registration numbers run in sequence from 25-0096 to 25-0102, and all seven were accepted under the same criterion, that of contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

An Edo townhouse with Taisho additions

Only the main house stands apart in date. The register places it in the early 19th century and puts the other six buildings at around 1921. What happened at Himurean, then, is that a late Edo townhouse was kept as the core and the rest of the household was built around it during the Taisho era: the reception wing, the washing room, the annex, two storehouses and the wall along the street.

The additions did not erase the older logic. The entry for the former washing room praises it for showing how buildings were arranged on a traditional townhouse plot in this district during the Edo period, and the annex is valued as evidence of how domestic life here was modernising. Older plan, newer rooms, one on top of the other. That layering is the character of the place.

How the plot reads from two streets

The main house faces the old highway with its long side, in the Hirairi manner, and the high wall runs east of its front. Behind the east face of the main house the reception wing is attached; behind that again comes the former washing room, and beyond it, set toward the east, the annex. The two storehouses close the southern end of the plot. Walk the line from the street inward and the sequence of additions is legible in the plan itself.

A second road runs along the eastern edge of the property. The reception wing turns its gable end toward that road, and the east face of the corridor attached on its south side was finished to look like a plastered boundary wall, a deliberate concession to the streetscape. The long wall of the east storehouse is visible from the same road and continues the same treatment.

The two frontages are handled differently. Toward the highway the high wall is built Shinkabe, with its posts left exposed and boarding at the base. Along the eastern road the surfaces run as continuous Shikkui plaster. Comparing the two makes clear how the household chose to answer each street.

The seven registered items

• Main house, early 19th century. Single-storey timber frame, tiled roof, floor area 117 square metres. Registration number 25-0096
• Zashiki reception wing, around 1921. Two-storey timber frame, tiled roof, floor area 80 square metres. Registration number 25-0097
• Former washing room. Single-storey timber frame, tiled roof, floor area 38 square metres. Registration number 25-0098
• Annex. Two-storey timber frame, tiled roof, floor area 30 square metres. Registration number 25-0099
• West storehouse. Two-storey Dozo-zukuri construction, tiled roof, floor area 46 square metres. Registration number 25-0100
• East storehouse. Two-storey Dozo-zukuri construction, tiled roof, floor area 36 square metres. Registration number 25-0101
• High wall. Timber, tiled roof, with wooden gate leaves, length 5.8 metres. Registration number 25-0102

Every item apart from the main house is dated to around 1921. All are roofed in tile, and only the two storehouses use earthen-walled construction.

Visiting

All seven buildings at Himurean are privately owned, and none of them is opened to the public as a cultural property. The front of the main house, however, was converted into a soba restaurant, a change the national register itself records. During business hours a visitor can therefore step into the earth-floored passage and the rooms given over to the shop. The reception wing, the former washing room, the annex and the two storehouses remain private living and storage space, and are closed.

The shop opens at midday only, with reported hours of 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and closes early once the day's noodles run out. Mondays and the third Tuesday of the month are given as rest days. These are the hours of a working restaurant and can change without notice, so it is worth telephoning ahead.

The exteriors can be seen from public roads. From the old highway you get the front of the main house and the high wall; from the eastern road, the gable of the reception wing, the corridor and the storehouse wall. The outline of the whole property can be traced without entering the grounds. Photography from the street is unproblematic. Inside the shop, other customers will be in the frame, so ask before raising a camera.

Himurean lies about 2.3 kilometres northwest of JR Omihachiman Station, roughly 30 minutes on foot from the north exit. By bus, take an Ohmi Railway service on the Chomeiji, Hachiman city or Funaki route to the Obatamachi Shiryokan-mae stop and walk southwest for about 6 minutes. From Hachimanbori or Shinmachi the walk west takes about 10 minutes. The lane in front of the house is narrow; drivers do better to use a municipal car park nearby and continue on foot.