Kamamura Family Residence

The Kamamura Family Residence at a Glance

The Kamamura Family Residence (鎌村家住宅, Kamamura-ke Jūtaku) is a homestead in Boso, Mima-cho, Mima City, Tokushima Prefecture, where a main house built in 1839 and eight related structures were entered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on December 5, 2007.

The nine registrations cover five buildings (the main house, a storehouse, a barn, a bathhouse and a toilet block), two stone-built wells to the north and east, and two stretches of earthen wall. They carry consecutive registration numbers, 36-0061 through 36-0069, and every one was listed under the same criterion: a structure that contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

Mima City describes the property as a homestead put up between the end of the Edo period and the Meiji era that keeps the character of a samurai-class residence. What makes it unusual is how much of the working household survives on one plot. The wells, the privy and the bathhouse are listed in their own right, not treated as footnotes to the main house.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The plot covers roughly 1,200 square meters with a hill rising behind it. The main house stands at the center and faces south. According to the city, the storehouse and toilet block lie to the west of it, and the barn and bathhouse to the east.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs entries fill in the finer detail. The storehouse runs north to south on the west side, with the toilet block just south of it; farther west, the West Earthen Wall marks the edge of the property, running south from the storehouse gable. On the east side the barn also runs north to south, with the bathhouse tucked against its north end. The East Well sits north of the bathhouse, and the North Well lies directly behind the main house.

East of the barn the land drops to rice paddies, and the barn stands on a retaining wall of cut stone. From the fields, wall and building read as one continuous face.

Earthen walls probably once enclosed the whole plot. A section still stands south of the storehouse. The Courtyard Earthen Wall is registered at 16 meters in length and the West Earthen Wall at 14 meters.

A Rough Building Sequence

Setting the dated structures side by side gives a sense of how the homestead grew.

• Main house: 1839 (Tenpō 10)
• Courtyard and West Earthen Walls: late Edo period
• Storehouse: 1891 (Meiji 24)
• Barn: around 1897 (Meiji 30)
• Bathhouse, toilet block and both wells: mid-Meiji period

The main house and walls set out the compound in the late Edo years; the storehouse, barn and water facilities followed after the Meiji Restoration, some of them replacing older buildings. The north end of the West Earthen Wall is thought to have once joined an earlier building on the storehouse site, which suggests the 1891 storehouse took the place of a predecessor.

All five buildings are roofed in hongawara tile, the heavy pan-and-cover tiling found on temples and well-to-do houses. Both wells are built from slabs of the local stone known in Tokushima as aoishi, or blue stone.

A Family Story About Sakamoto Ryoma

The Kamamura family holds a tradition that in 1862 the reformer Sakamoto Ryōma (坂本龍馬) called on the head of the household, Kamamura Kumata, and was hidden in the house for a time. A 2019 travel feature reported that a concealed room and bedding said to have been used by Ryoma are still kept in the main house.

That account comes from the family and was presented as such. Neither the national database nor Mima City mentions it, and no contemporary record confirming the visit turned up in the sources consulted here. The registration itself rests on the architecture and its place in the landscape, not on the story.

Visiting and Getting There

The Kamamura Family Residence is privately owned and still lived in, so the grounds are not open for casual visits. The 2019 feature said tours were arranged by applying to the owner in advance, by fax, postcard or letter. Arrangements may have changed since then. Before planning a trip, check current conditions with the Mima City Board of Education, whose regional learning section is listed as the contact on the city's page for this property.

The address is 231 Boso, Mima-cho, on the north bank of the Yoshino River. The same feature puts the house about 10 minutes by car from the Mima Interchange on the Tokushima Expressway and mentions parking space on the property. The nearest railway is the JR Tokushima Line, which runs along the opposite bank through Sadamitsu Station; the distance from there makes a car or taxi the practical choice.

No published guidance on photography could be found. Since this is a family home, ask about it when you arrange your visit.

Names and Spellings

The Japanese reading is Kamamura-ke Jūtaku. In the national database each item is listed under the residence name followed by the building, such as 鎌村家住宅主屋 (Kamamura Family Residence Main House) or 鎌村家住宅蔵 (Kamamura Family Residence Storehouse).