Former Nomura Family Residence Main House (Manabikan)

A Sake Merchant's Townhouse of 1886

The Former Nomura Family Residence Main House (旧野村家住宅主屋, Kyū Nomura-ke Jūtaku Shuoku), now the Manabikan of the Yamaguchi Furusato Heritage Center, is a townhouse built in 1886 as the shop and home of a sake brewer in Shimotatekoji, Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on August 23, 1999 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a two-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 272 square metres; registration number 35-0025, owned by Yamaguchi City.

Why It Was Registered

The main house was registered as a structure contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a fairly wide two-storey townhouse, entered from the long side and built in clay-walled dozo style, with a solid, weighty design of thick pine beams and lintels.

What to Look For

Six rooms stand in two rows of three along an earth-floored passage (Agency for Cultural Affairs). According to the Yamaguchi Furusato Heritage Center, the timber is mainly pine with some zelkova, and the insect-cage windows, fine lattices, tie beams and beams up to about 45 centimetres across give the house its heavy presence.

The open upper floor shows the bold carpentry of the boarded rooms, and a ridge board marked "Meiji 19" (1886) survives on the ceiling. There is also a lift-up staircase for escape in an emergency. Four wells from the brewery days remain in the grounds, two of them now used to raise Genji fireflies (Yamaguchi Furusato Heritage Center).

Visiting

According to the Yamaguchi Furusato Heritage Center, the Manabikan is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission, and is closed from December 29 to January 5 and from August 14 to 16. Enquiries go to the center (083-928-3333).

The address is 12 Shimotatekoji, Yamaguchi City. It is about 25 minutes on foot from JR Yamaguchi Station, or about 20 minutes by car from the Ogori interchange of the Chugoku Expressway, with free parking for about 20 cars (Yamaguchi Prefecture tourism site).