Fujita Family Residence

A Farmstead on the Yoshino River Delta

The Fujita Family Residence (藤田家住宅, Fujita-ke Jūtaku) is a farming household's compound in Shinkirai, Kitajima Town, Tokushima Prefecture, whose five buildings, ranging from an 1895 storehouse to a main house of around 1927, were listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2016/11/29.

Kitajima sits on the low, flat delta near the mouth of the Yoshino River. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Fujita Family Residence as a farmhouse on this delta plain, and its note on the storehouse points out that the estuary district has long contended with floods. Tokushima Prefecture's own visitor material places the house along the old course of the Yoshino and presents it as a valuable example of a modern rural home in the river-mouth area.

All five listed structures belong to a single working farm: the main house, a rear barn with a residential annex, a second barn, a storehouse, and a long gatehouse with its wall. Taken together they show how one rural family arranged living rooms, work buildings and storage on the same plot.

Reading the Compound by Date

Line the buildings up by the dates recorded in the national database and a surprise appears: the main house at the centre of the Fujita Family Residence is the youngest of the five.

• Storehouse: 1895 (Meiji 28)
• Nagayamon gate and wall: 1905 and 1908, with additions in the early Showa period (1926 to 1945)
• Barn: late Taisho period (1919 to 1926)
• Rear barn and annex: around 1923
• Main house: around 1927

The family kept its Meiji storehouse and gate, then rebuilt the working and living core in the 1920s: first the barn, then the rear barn and annex, and finally the main house. No public record describes whatever house stood here before, but the dates make plain that the present layout took about 30 years to assemble.

Every roof is tiled, and the Agency's notes specify hongawarabuki, the heavy pan-and-cover tiling, on the main house, barn, storehouse and gate. Walls alternate between shitami-itabari clapboard and white shikkui plaster. North of the gate runs a reinforced-concrete wall given a rough "German wall" texture, so a Meiji earthen storehouse and an early Showa concrete wall end up as neighbours.

How the Buildings Are Arranged

The Fujita Family Residence is organised around its main house, with the service buildings pulled in close on every side.

The west front: gatehouse and wall

A nagayamon, or long gatehouse, closes the southern part of the west side. From south to north it holds a watchman's room, a cattle stall, the gate passage and a privy, and the roof over the gate is raised a step above the rest. A concrete wall continues north from the gatehouse for 12 metres until it meets the storehouse. This is the face the farm turns to the outside world.

The centre: main house

The main house faces south in the middle of the plot. A gabled main roof is ringed on all four sides by lean-to eaves (geya), and with a building area of 180 square metres it is by far the largest of the five.

West and north: storehouse, rear barn and annex

The storehouse stands west of the main house, where the wall from the gate ends. Behind the house, in the northwest corner, is the rear barn and annex; its eastern half, the annex, is joined to the main house by a covered passage.

The east edge: barn

The barn sits midway along the eastern boundary and touches the southeast corner of the main house through a lean-to added later.

Storehouse and gate to the west, annex to the north, barn to the east: the house is linked to both the annex and the barn under cover, which suggests farm work and family life moved through one connected set of buildings.

What Was Registered

The five buildings of the Fujita Family Residence were registered together on 2016/11/29 as part of the 85th round of national registrations, all under the criterion that they contribute to the historic landscape of the country. Their registration numbers run consecutively from 36-0148 to 36-0152.

• Main house (36-0148): wooden, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 180 square metres
• Rear barn and annex (36-0149): wooden, 2 storeys with a single-storey section, tiled roof, building area 122 square metres
• Barn (36-0150): wooden, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 38 square metres
• Storehouse (36-0151): earthen-walled dozo-zukuri, 2 storeys, tiled roof, building area 23 square metres
• Nagayamon gate and wall (36-0152): gatehouse wooden, single storey, tiled roof, building area 39 square metres; wall reinforced concrete, 12 metres long

The Agency calls the main house a good example of a modern farmhouse. Because the outbuildings were listed alongside it, protection extends to the whole working farmstead rather than the house alone.

Visiting and Getting There

The Fujita Family Residence is a private home. As of October 2026 we found no announcement of public openings or guided visits, and the grounds and interiors are not accessible. If you walk in the neighbourhood, stay on public roads, do not enter driveways, and keep any pause brief out of respect for the people who live here.

The best way to see the buildings is online: each entry in the Agency for Cultural Affairs' national database carries photographs supplied by the Kitajima Town Board of Education.

The address is 57 Shinkirai, Kitajima Town, about 1.6 kilometres east of Shōzui Station on the JR Kōtoku Line in a straight line. From Tokushima Station, take the Kōtoku Line to Shōzui and continue on foot or by car. The distance is our estimate from map coordinates; there is no official access guide.

About the Name

Fujita-ke Jūtaku simply means "the Fujita family residence," and several unrelated registered houses in Kyoto and Shimane share the name. Adding "Kitajima" or "Shinkirai" to a search will bring up this one. In the national database each building is listed as the residence name followed by the building name, for example Fujita Family Residence Main House (藤田家住宅主屋).