Ishio Family Residence

Ishio Family Residence

The Ishio Family Residence (石尾家住宅), a merchant house in the old castle town of Shikano, Tottori City, keeps three structures registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 29, 2019: the main house of the late Edo period, a storehouse of the late Meiji period and a gate and wall of the early Showa period (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The main house, a large townhouse with a low upper storey facing north onto the old Shikano road, is valued by the Agency as the centrepiece of the old castle-town streetscape.

The Three Structures

The main house has its earth-floored area to the east and its tatami-floored shop to the west, with a front of fine lattices, projecting lattice windows and carved brackets (Agency for Cultural Affairs). To the west, a separate inner room and a newer reception wing are ranged around a front garden.

The two-storey fireproof storehouse faces south in the northwest corner, with a lower wall of namako tiles at the front (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The gate and wall stand along the road between the house and the storehouse: a plastered wall 13 metres long with a bracketed gate with red-painted doors at its east end. Each structure is described on its own page.

Visiting

No official information on access to the interior was found. All three stand along the old Shikano road and can be seen from the street (Agency for Cultural Affairs).