Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall

What Is the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall?

The Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall (青木家住宅土塀, Aokike Jūtaku Dobei) is an earthen boundary wall built in 1915 in Mima-cho, Mima City, Tokushima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 1998. It closes the north and east sides of the Aoki estate.

It runs for 44 metres. The north stretch faces the road, with the four-legged gate set into it, and Mima City gives the height of the estate's walls as about 2 metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs counts the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall as one structure.

Why the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall Was Registered

The Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall was registered on 9 October 1998 as number 36-0016, under the criterion for structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country.

The Agency picks out the coping on the road side as a detail of special care. Boundary walls rarely get the attention given to buildings; the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall was listed as a wall whose public face was treated as carefully as a building's.

Inside it lie the main house and garden, and along the northern road it joins the four-legged gate and the two storehouses. Wall, gate and storehouses together make up the north front of the estate.

What to Look For at the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall: Stone Base, Buttresses and a Brick Crest

The Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall is built in two parts. The lower part is stone masonry, and the earthen wall rises on top of it. The upper wall is braced by buttresses on the estate side at intervals of about one ken, roughly 1.8 metres. The supports stand on the inside, so the road side stays flat.

The finish also changes from side to side: the road face is lime Shikkui plaster, the east face mortar. The busy north side was dressed in white plaster, while the east side was given a more utilitarian render.

What catches the eye is the top of the road face. A course of bricks laid on the diagonal carries the Kasagi coping, so the angled brick ends run in a finely notched band along the top of the white wall. Brick at the crest of an earthen wall is the touch of novelty that dates the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall to the 1910s.

Seeing the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall

The north side of the Aoki Family Residence Earthen Wall faces the road and can be seen from outside. The plastered face and the diagonal brick course at the top are clearest from the road; look at the stone base below as well.

To see the buttresses on the inside and the mortar finish on the east, you need to be inside the grounds. The Aoki Family Residence is a Mima City facility, and visits or use need to be arranged in advance with the Regional Learning Promotion Division of the Mima City Board of Education (checked 1 October 2026).