Kyū Yagyū-han Karō Yashiki, Samurai residence museum in Yagyū-chō, Japan
The Kyū Yagyū-han Karō Yashiki is a wooden samurai residence with paper sliding doors and interior spaces arranged according to traditional layouts typical of high-ranking retainers' homes. The building preserves original tatami rooms and displays the spatial organization needed for both administrative work and daily household functions.
Built in 1848, the residence served the chief administrator of the Yagyū clan, a prominent samurai family renowned for their sword mastery. The family held significant administrative roles during the Edo period and influenced the region's governance for generations.
The residence demonstrates how high-ranking samurai conducted both formal duties and daily activities within a carefully organized household structure. The arrangement of rooms and their furnishings reveal the strict social order that governed the lives of these powerful families.
The museum maintains regular visiting hours and provides informational materials explaining the household's administrative functions and daily operations. You can walk through the rooms in sequence and experience how the spaces were actually used.
The residence displays writing desks and shelving used for keeping administrative records of the entire Yagyū domain. These objects offer a rare glimpse into the daily paperwork and recordkeeping that occupied high-ranking samurai families.
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