Matsumoto Family Residence

About the Matsumoto Family Residence

The Matsumoto Family Residence (松本家住宅, Matsumoto-ke Jūtaku) is an old family estate on the Nikko Nishi Kaido road in Chuo-cho, Mibu Town, Tochigi Prefecture, whose main house, gates and storehouses were built between about 1907 and 1912; six of its structures were registered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on June 21, 2013. The estate is privately owned and still lived in.

According to the Mibu Town Board of Education, this Matsumoto household is a branch of the Matsumoto family that served as the Honjin, the official inn where daimyo and other ranking travelers lodged on the highway, during the Edo period. Shosaku Matsumoto, the first head of the branch, also held the honjin duties for a time. The town notes that the arrangement of the buildings follows features of honjin architecture as a result.

The family story goes back further. A 2025 feature in the Shimotsuke Shimbun, the prefectural newspaper, relates the tradition that Shobei Matsumoto, founder of the main line, came to Mibu in the retinue of Torii Tadateru when the lord moved from the Minakuchi domain (in present-day Koka, Shiga Prefecture) to take over Mibu. It was Shosaku, founder of the branch, who laid out the estate that survives today.

Mibu's main street is known locally as Rangaku-dori, and the front gate of the Matsumoto Family Residence stands directly on it. For most visitors, that gate is the first and often the only part of the estate they see.

The Six Registered Structures

All six parts of the Matsumoto Family Residence were registered on the same day, under consecutive registration numbers 09-0206 to 09-0211. Each was listed under the same criterion: that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the following dates and forms.

• Main House: 1912, wooden, single-story, building area 142 m²
• Front Gate: about 1907, wooden, 4.9 m wide, with flanking wing walls
• Document Storehouse: about 1907, 2-story earthen-walled storehouse, building area 33 m²
• Grain Storehouse: about 1907, 2-story earthen-walled storehouse, building area 33 m²
• Living Quarters Storehouse: about 1907, 2-story earthen-walled storehouse, building area 33 m², renovated in 2010
• Rear Gate, Tile Shed and Fence: about 1907; the gate is 2.3 m wide, the shed has a building area of 6.6 m², and the fence runs 30 m in total

The dates tell a small story. The gates and the three storehouses were in place by the end of the Meiji era, and the main house, the heart of the household, followed a few years later in 1912. The family seems to have secured the perimeter and the storage first, then rebuilt the house.

The family also keeps a kuden, a miniature shrine building, that Mibu Town designated as a municipal cultural property (craft) in 1991. It is modeled as a three-bay hall with a hip-and-gable roof, with dragons carved on the porch pillars and rabbits among waves and lions among peonies on its side and rear panels.

How the Estate Is Laid Out

Read together, the Agency's descriptions give a fairly clear plan of the Matsumoto Family Residence. The main house stands on a plot along the Nikko Nishi Kaido and faces west, toward the road. The front gate sits on the west side of the plot, directly in front of the main house, so that anyone passing through it faces the Irimoya-zukuri roof of the entrance porch.

Behind, three earthen-walled storehouses of identical size stand side by side from west to east, each with its ridge running north to south: the Document Storehouse at the west end, the Grain Storehouse in the middle, and the Living Quarters Storehouse at the east end. Each measures 7.3 m by 4.6 m under a Kirizuma-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles.

The rear gate is at the southeast corner. Fencing runs east and west from either side of it to close off the plot, and the small tile shed survives at the fence's southeast end.

In the Agency database the six entries carry three different lot addresses: 340 and others, 1319-15 and others, and 1319-16, all in Chuo-cho. The lots were simply recorded registration by registration. On the ground the six structures form one estate.

Visiting and Getting There

The Matsumoto Family Residence is a private home and is not normally open to the public. There are no set hours or admission fees, and visitors can enter the grounds only during special openings. A walking guide on Mibucoco, the local site run by the Mibu Town Society of Commerce and Industry, likewise lists the house as open only for special openings and asks walkers to be considerate of the residents.

On an ordinary day, what you can see is the front gate and its wing walls facing Rangaku-dori. The street in front is a public road, so keep any lingering and photography to the roadside. For news of special openings, check announcements from Mibu Town or the Mibu Town Tourist Association.

The nearest station is Mibu on the Tobu Utsunomiya Line. From there the front gate of the Matsumoto Family Residence is about 550 m to the northwest by road, roughly a 7-minute walk.