Tsuchiyama Family Residence (Tsuchiyama-shuku Honjin Site)

The Tsuchiyama Family Residence at a Glance

The Tsuchiyama Family Residence (Tsuchiyama-shuku Honjin Site) (土山家住宅（土山宿本陣跡）, Tsuchiyama-ke Jūtaku) is the former honjin, the official inn for lords and court nobles, of Tsuchiyama-shuku on the old Tokaido road in Kitatsuchiyama, Tsuchiyama-cho, Koka City, Shiga Prefecture; the Tsuchiyama family ran it from 1634 until the end of the Edo period, and its main house, annex, storehouse and rice storehouse were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 February 2023.

Locally the house is signposted simply as the Tsuchiyama-juku Honjin Site or the Old Tsuchiyama Honjin. The four buildings carry consecutive registration numbers, 25-0511 to 25-0514, and all four were listed on the same criterion: their contribution to the historic landscape of the country. They were not built at one time. The two storehouses date from the late Edo period (1830 to 1868), the annex from the late Meiji era, and the main house from 1960, so the property spans roughly a century of rebuilding by one family that kept the look of a Honjin alive.

A Post Town Inn for Lords and Nobles

Tsuchiyama-shuku was the 49th of the post towns on the Tokaido, the highway between Edo and Kyoto, lying on the Omi side of the Suzuka Pass. A document collection held by Koka City records the Tokugawa grant of 1601 that set up the town's relay service for official horses and porters.

A honjin was the inn reserved for daimyo, court nobles and shogunate officials on the road. According to Koka City, the Tsuchiyama family received the honjin appointment in 1634, when the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, travelled up to Kyoto, and served in that role until the shogunate fell. The family still keeps the honjin's guest registers, now designated by the city, along with a large body of letters, furnishings and other papers.

When the honjin system was abolished in 1870, the family turned to tea, Tsuchiyama's local crop, as its main business. The present head is the 14th generation, and the Tsuchiyama Family Residence remains a lived-in home.

On the 22nd day of the ninth month of 1868 (Meiji 1, by the old lunar calendar), the young Emperor Meiji, travelling east to Tokyo, stopped here for the night. It was his first birthday as emperor, and the first Tenchosetsu, the emperor's birthday holiday, was celebrated at the inn. The educator Inoue Enryo, visiting in 1914, noted in his lecture-tour diary that the family still kept the seat the emperor had used. A stone marking the imperial visit stands on the property.

How the Four Buildings Fit Together

Read together, the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions give a clear plan of the site. The main house faces south onto the Tokaido, its long axis running east to west. Behind it, across a garden, stands the annex, linked to the main house by a covered corridor from the annex's southeast corner.

At the back of the lot, one storehouse occupies each of the two northern corners. The storehouse in the northwest corner opens to the east; the rice storehouse in the northeast corner opens to the west. Their doors face each other across the inner part of the property.

• Main House: 1960, two storeys, timber, 174 square metres, with posts from the earlier honjin reused in its street front
• Annex: late Meiji era, single storey, 108 square metres, a suite of formal rooms with a raised Jōdan-no-ma, known in the family as the Gyokuza (imperial seat)
• Storehouse: late Edo period, two storeys, Dozo-zukuri, 63 square metres, used for household goods
• Rice Storehouse: late Edo period, single storey, 17 square metres, built of stacked planks in the Seirōgura manner

From the road you see the newest building first. The farther in you go, the older the fabric becomes.

Visiting the Tsuchiyama-shuku Honjin Site

The Tsuchiyama Family Residence is a private home, and the interior can be seen only by advance reservation. Koka City and the Koka tourism association list admission at 300 yen (250 yen per person for groups), viewing hours of 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and irregular closing days. Book by telephone on 0748-66-0007. Without a booking you can see only the street front.

A booked visit takes in the jodan-no-ma where lords stayed, the imperial seat associated with Emperor Meiji, and the guest registers, travel placards and craftwork kept by the family. Whether photography is allowed indoors has not been published, so ask when you book.

By rail, start from Kibukawa Station on the JR Kusatsu Line and take the Koka City community bus (Aikuru Bus) Tsuchiyama Line to the Omi-Tsuchiyama stop, then walk about 4 minutes. Tourist guides give the ride as 15 minutes, but the current timetable shows most runs taking around 35 minutes, with roughly one bus an hour or fewer in the daytime, so check times before setting out. By car, the Koka-Tsuchiyama interchange on the Shin-Meishin Expressway is about 10 minutes away; no dedicated parking is advertised.