Fukuda Family Residence (Kamikodani, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture)

Main House and Storehouses, an Important Cultural Property since 1974

Fukuda Family Residence, Kagodani, Tottori City (福田家住宅（鳥取県鳥取市紙子谷）) stands at 60 Kagodani, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, listed as an Important Cultural Property on 5 February 1974. The listing is as an Important Cultural Property, not a National Treasure.

The Agency records that the house stands in a hamlet along a valley at the southern edge of the Tottori plain, that the Fukuda family held a standing in early modern times equal to that of a head village headman, and that the main house, thought to date from the early seventeenth century, is listed as among the oldest farmhouses in the prefecture.

Two earthen-walled storehouses were added later, one to the south of the main house and one behind it to the west.

The Reading Covers the Bracketed Words Too

The reading field takes in the location within the name.

For the upper storehouse, the reading runs through the family name, the bracketed place, and the name of the building itself.

The place inside the brackets is given a reading, and that reading is not the obvious one: the characters for the hamlet are read Kagodani.

At the Chikugo lift bridge, the reading covered only the words outside the brackets. At the Imose residence, the same: the bracketed place went unread.

Here the reading reaches inside. With the Rai Kunimitsu blade, angle brackets and slash were reproduced as well.

How readings are supplied differs from property to property, and this is the sixth form met. Residences of this family name are listed across the country, so the bracketed location is what tells them apart.

Three Reading Glosses in One Commentary

Readings appear repeatedly within the running text.

The Agency writes that the upper storehouse, south of the main house, was built in the first year of the Bunsei era, 1818, with a reading gloss set into the era name.

It continues that the buildings are finished at key points with lattice-patterned plaster and relief plasterwork, in a manner befitting the family's standing, with a gloss on each of those two terms as well.

Three glosses in one commentary.

At the Wakato Bridge there were two, on the words for wind loading and on a place name. The gilded staff head and the Gekimosho carried one each, in lenticular brackets.

Three in round brackets is the most met so far.

Added to the Listing Later, Together with the Land

The protected extent was widened after the fact.

The Agency closes that the two storehouses are important buildings conveying the layout of a wealthy farming household that made skilful use of a limited plot, and that they are added to the listing together with the land, so that the whole may be protected as one.

Added to the listing, in those words. The main house was already listed, and the storehouses and the ground were brought in afterward.

At the former Konishi residence, the site including the rear garden was to be preserved along with the buildings. That was part of the listing from the start.

Here it is an addition, and the land came with it.

At the Chikugo lift bridge, the property moved from registration to designation, crossing between systems. Here the extent widened within one designation.

Visiting

The residence stands at 60 Kagodani, Tottori City. This site's record leaves the owner field empty.

The years of building lie far apart. The main house is of the early seventeenth century, the upper storehouse of 1818 and the lower of about 1823.

Some two hundred years separate the main house from the storehouses. At the Imose residence, twenty-seven years divided two parts of one main house. At the Ishitani residence, the main house was Showa and the storehouses Taisho. Here the gap is the widest met.

The upper storehouse is of earthen-walled construction, 14.4 metres along the front and 3.9 metres deep, two-storeyed, with an eave on the north side, roofed in pantiles.

This is a private house, and access follows the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.