Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall

About the Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall

The Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall (平岡家住宅南塀, Hiraoka-ke Jūtaku Minami-bei) is a tiled earthen wall in Osato, Kaiyo-cho, Kaifu-gun, Tokushima Prefecture, built in the early Showa era (1926 to 1945) and entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2022. It runs across the front of the Hiraoka Family Residence Main House and is 13 meters long.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall for its contribution to the historic landscape, describing it as part of the estate's weighty front. It separates a path inside the property from the main house.

A Cut-Stone Base Under a Plastered Wall

The Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall is built in two parts, stone below and earth above. The base is 3 courses of cut sandstone laid with level joints (Nunozumi), each block finished in the Edokiri manner.

On this base stands an earthen wall finished in lime plaster (Shikkui). Both walls of the estate use sandstone, but where the west wall stacks 6 courses of rough split stone, the south wall uses only 3 courses of dressed stone as a plinth. Comparing the two shows the outer boundary and the front of the house being treated differently.

A Tall Tiled Ridge

The coping is roofed with pantiles (Sangawara-buki), and the ridge is built up from 4 layers of flat noshi tiles capped with a rounded ridge tile (Gamburi-gawara). For a wall this is a tall ridge, and from the front the stacked tiles read as a thick horizontal band.

Besides a view of the whole wall from the northwest, the national database includes a photograph captioned "back gate, cloud-shaped projecting beam end", recording a gate detail whose beam ends are carved in a cloud profile.

The Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall dates from the same early Showa period as the kitchen, so the wall across the front of the 1872 house is some 50 years younger than the house itself.

Visiting the Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall

There is no public opening of the Hiraoka Family Residence South Wall, and the grounds cannot be entered. It stands in front of the main house and divides a path inside the property, so how much of it can be seen from the street depends on where you stand.

No guidance on photography is published. View it from the street without entering the grounds. For the distance from the station, see the Hiraoka Family Residence page.