Kamamura Family Residence Main House

What the Main House Is

The Kamamura Family Residence Main House (鎌村家住宅主屋) is a timber farmhouse built in 1839 in Boso, Mima-cho, Mima City, Tokushima Prefecture, and was entered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 5, 2007.

It sits near the middle of the family compound and faces south. The roof is a simple gable (Kirizuma-zukuri), with the entrance on the long side under the eaves, the arrangement known as Hirairi. The national database lists the structure as single-storey in one field and as having a tsushi second floor in its description. The two are not really in conflict: a Tsushi-nikai is a low loft tucked under the roof for storage, not a full upper floor. With a building area of 281 square meters, this is the largest structure on the property.

Why It Was Registered

All nine Kamamura registrations were made under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. The Kamamura Family Residence Main House is the anchor of the group and holds the first of the nine registration numbers, 36-0061.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs reads the plan as having begun about seven bays long, with four rooms in a square grid, the yomadori layout typical of well-off rural houses. A formal eight-mat reception room (Zashiki) and an anteroom were later added on the west. You can trace in the floor plan how a country household upgraded its space for receiving guests.

The outer walls, gable ends included, are finished in thick Shikkui lime plaster that hides the timber frame completely. The agency calls the result weighty and solid. Mima City describes the whole homestead as keeping the character of a samurai-class residence.

What to Look For

Stand in front and the roof reads as two layers: the main gable above, and below it the roof of the lean-to (Geya) that runs along the front. Both are laid in hongawara pan-and-cover tile, whose ribbed rows throw deeper shadows than the flatter sangawara tile common on later houses.

The white plaster continues without a break around the gable ends. Because no posts or beams show, the walls read as broad flat planes, and the few openings stand out. Combined with the low eaves of the loft storey, the effect is squat and heavy rather than tall.

Sheet-metal canopies wrap the west and north sides, a later practical addition that sits oddly beside the formal tile roof. Compare them with the west-side extension and try to picture where the 1839 house ended.

Family tradition holds that Sakamoto Ryoma was hidden in a room of this house in the last years of the shogunate. A 2019 travel feature reported that bedding said to have been his is kept here and that a small display was set up inside in 2010. These details were presented as family lore; the national database does not mention them.

Visiting

The Kamamura Family Residence Main House is still a family home. Whether you can go inside is up to the owner, so if you want to see the interior and the display, say so when you apply to visit. The 2019 feature described the owner showing visitors the interior on request.

From the south side of the compound, facing the front, you get the clearest view of the stacked tile roofs and plaster walls. The sheet-metal canopies are only visible from the side and rear. Ask about photography when you make your arrangements.