Obara-Ya Harada Shoten Salt Store

One Salt Storehouse, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 1999

Obara-Ya Harada Shoten Salt Store (小原屋原田商店塩蔵, Obaraya Harada Shoten Shiogura) stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture, an Edo-period building entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 7 June 1999. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building.

The structure is of earthen construction, two-storeyed, tiled, with a floor area of 86 square metres. The date field reads Edo and the year field 1830 to 1867.

One Room's Use Names the Whole Building

What half the building held became the name of all of it.

The Agency records the ground floor divided by a partition into 2 rooms, and says the building takes its name because the western room was used to store salt.

The eastern room, it continues, held the stair to the upper floor and served for general storage.

Salt was kept in the western room alone; the eastern was a lumber room. Still the building is called the salt store.

At the Oishi residence, the north storehouse divides within into a miso store and an implement store, yet is named by its position.

Here the use of one of the divided rooms gives the name. In a house that brokered salt, the room that held it stands for the whole.

The Stair Lies on the Lumber-Room Side

Movement between floors is gathered into one room.

The Agency records the stair to the upper floor in the eastern room.

The western room, where salt was kept, has none. To go up, one passes through the lumber room.

In the oil storehouse on the same grounds, only the southernmost of 3 rooms has an upper floor and the rest are open to the roof.

Here both rooms have an upper floor, and the stair to it is placed in the eastern one.

The place where salt was kept and the place where people moved about are divided by a partition wall.

Called Plain Throughout

The assessment ends on the absence of ornament.

The Agency closes that it has openings only in front and back, and is plain in design throughout.

Doors and windows are confined to the front and back; the sides are closed. Beyond that, it is plain.

The oil storehouse on the same grounds is called a closed store, but carefully made, with its front dado in tiled walling.

That record turns on a but and goes on to the care taken. This one closes on plain.

Like the standard storehouse at the Oishi residence, it belongs to the type that states the ordinary. Within one set of grounds, the closing words differ from store to store.

Visiting

The building stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture.

The Agency places it west of the document storehouse, a two-storeyed earthen store with an earth-floored eave at its front: its position is given from another store on the grounds.

At 86 square metres it is second among the 5 buildings on the grounds, after the oil storehouse at 152 square metres. The document storehouse covers 53 square metres.

The house is said to have dealt chiefly as a broker in salt and other goods. The shop, oil and document storehouses and the new reception room were registered on the same day.

No owner is recorded, and opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.