Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward

What Is the Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward?

The Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward (旧北室醫院病棟, Kyū Kitamuro Iin Byōtō) is a single-storey wooden inpatient ward built around 1921 in Handa, Tsurugi Town, Tokushima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 17, 2020. It stands directly north of the clinic, and a covered corridor links the two.

The building is long and narrow, running east to west, with a building area of 127 square meters. It has a tiled roof with lean-to extensions (Geya) at both the east and west ends. Tucked at the back of the compound, the Kitamuro ward is almost completely hidden behind the clinic when you come in from the south.

Why the Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward Was Registered

The Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for contributing to the historic landscape. In the Agency for Cultural Affairs' words, it still conveys what a rural medical facility looked like.

The simple fact that a village practice had beds is the record here. Its 7 patient rooms show, in their number and arrangement, how much space one doctor's household in the middle Yoshino valley set aside for people who needed to stay.

Timing matters too. The clinic and the ward both date from around 1921, and the arrangement they form, a place to examine patients joined by a corridor to a place for them to rest, survives intact.

What to Look For in the Kitamuro Ward

Rooms to the north, corridor to the south

Inside, 7 patient rooms sit in a row along the north side, with the corridor along the south. Putting the passage on the sunny side and the rooms on the shaded side may have been meant to keep the rooms out of direct sun and hold a steadier temperature. At the southwest corner the washrooms and plumbing project outward, so in plan the building reads as a long box with one small bump at a corner.

Wooden floors, wainscoting and beds

The rooms are Western rather than tatami-matted: board floors, wainscoted walls, and beds. The Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward was built for patients to rest on bedsteads, in the Western manner. The museum's website shows photographs of a patient room and of the view out of a ward window.

The roof and its repairs

The Agency's description gives the roof form as yosetsuma-zukuri with pan tiles. Walking round to compare the east and west ends is the easiest way to see how the long ridge is finished at each end. The collapsed roof over the ward's cooking range was repaired in July 2022, and a bargeboard that had fallen off was fixed in December 2024. A small wooden ward like this stays standing through a steady run of such repairs.

Seeing the Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward

The Former Kitamuro Hospital Ward is shown as part of the guided tour booked through the Former Kitamuro Hospital Medical Museum. Following the corridor north from the clinic, you walk the same route from the place of examination to the place of rest.

From the south entrance the ward is out of sight behind the clinic. Go round to the back, the north side, of the clinic and the south face of the ward appears at the end of the corridor. Booking and transport details are on the Former Kitamuro Hospital page.