Yokaichi and Gokoku Historical District

The Yokaichi and Gokoku quarter of Uchiko is a street of about 600 metres lined with houses of the Edo period and later. It was selected as a preservation district in 1982, the eighteenth in the country and the first in Shikoku, and holds 93 protected buildings and three Important Cultural Properties.

A settlement grew here in the sixteenth century around Kosho-ji, the temple of the Sone family, and the place developed as a post town and country town on the main road.

What made it rich came later. From the end of the Edo period into the Meiji era Uchiko produced wax, pressed from the berries of the wax tree, and the trade paid for the houses that line the street. The wax merchants built substantially, and the largest of their houses are the ones now protected.

Two things mark the street out. The plaster on the walls is yellowish rather than white, because the earth it was made from was dug nearby. It gives the whole street a colour that sets it apart from the white-walled quarters elsewhere.

Between the buildings run narrow lanes, known here as sedawa. They are part of how the quarter is built and are worth looking down as you pass.

The move to protect the street came from the people who lived on it. They formed an association in 1976, six years before the national selection, and it continues today under a later name. The town keeps a preservation centre in the quarter.