Yamashō Memorial Museum

photo by 皓月旗 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Koga Masao slept in the guest annexe of the Yamashō house: entry is free, guide included.

You enter through a rare gateway, a 薬医門 (yakui-mon) that is the symbol of the house, and you look round for free: just ask on the day at the tourist office opposite, which also acts as a guide at no cost. Inside, besides the merchant's storehouse of March 1874, is the guest annexe where Koga Masao, the composer of ‘Kage wo Shitaite’ (影を慕いて) and one of the central figures of twentieth-century Japanese popular song, slept. The house is part of Murata's row of twenty-three storehouse-style houses, lined up over about a kilometre and dating from between the late Edo period and the nineteen-tens.

The Ōnuma family traded as ‘Yamashō’ from the late Edo period to the early Shōwa years: safflower (紅花, the flower from which red dye was made) above all, then raw silk, cotton yarn, farm produce, and the making and selling of miso and soy sauce; it was one of the wealthiest merchants in the town. The house, dated to March 1874 (Meiji 7), stands on the main street of the storehouse district (蔵の町並み), among the twenty-three preserved shop-houses that line it; its gateway, a 薬医門, is considered rare and is the distinguishing mark of the property. The guest annexe (離れ座敷) hosted Koga Masao, composer of ‘Kage wo Shitaite’ and a leading figure in twentieth-century Japanese popular music. The seventh head of the family, Ōnuma Shōshichi, donated the building in 1998 to the municipality of Murata, which opened it as a memorial museum.

ℹ️ ⚠️ The original record listed it as ‘the only thing you pay for here’: it is not. Admission is free and includes a guided tour: you turn up on the day at the district's tourist office (蔵の観光案内所), directly opposite, with no need to book; for groups there is a dedicated request page on the same website. No trace of a combined ticket for the rest of the district was found in any of the open sources: the other twenty-two houses are mostly private homes, not paid attractions open to visitors. Open all year except around the end and start of the year (年末年始, dates not specified in any source), from 9:00 to 16:00. It cannot be visited on days when the house is hosting events, is hired out for private use, or is closed for maintenance. Tourist office: 0224-86-3404 (the number 0224-83-6211, cited elsewhere, appears crossed out as out of date on the office's own website); Murata municipality, promotion office: 0224-83-2113.

🚉 Murata Machiyakuba Mae · 4 min walk

Sources: yamani.main.jp · yamani.main.jp · murata-kankou.com · murata-kankou.com · town.murata.miyagi.jp

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