Village of Yagyu

Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain 1
Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain 2
Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain 3
Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain 4



◆Village of Yagyu   Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain [ 2 ]

 Explanation in English is available below.

Old residence of chief retainer of the Yagyu domain

■Garden

It consists of a front courtyard at front entrance and curving inner courtyard from north side to east side of the main building. For constructing the garden, it is said that a tea ceremony master Sousen Kizu assisted the design and 24 lanterns in small and medium size were installed in the garden. For the inner courtyard, you might be able to feel taste of the past with landscape stones located in each place as well as stone arrangement of washbasin remain. The age for huge maple trees, oaks, and hollies is considered approximately 200 years. For the renovation, the garden kept its original formation as much as possible.


■Sohachi Yamaoka (1907-1978)

He was born in farm family. His real name is Shouzou Fujino. In 1933, he firstly published the periodical "Taishu Club (People's club)" as a chief editor himself, and in the following year, he started his writing activity as he wrote "Sado-no-Koyosannjin (Mountaineer of autumn leaves in Sado)" with his pen name "Sohachi Yamaoka". Then, he joined the club called "Shinyoukai" of Shin Hasegawa in 1940, received the Incentive Award of Noma Creative Writing in 1942 with his novels "Kaitei senki (War at bottom of ocean)" and "Senkan-doujouki (Story of riding on submarine )", and in the following year, he wrote the situational novel "Shikono-mitate (Holly shield)". After the Second World War, he continued his various creative writing works including the significant writing work "Ieyasu Tokugawa" by taking 17 years since 1950 to complete it. He eventually won "Shin Hasegawa Award" and "The Literary Award of Eiji Yoshikawa" in 1967 and 1968 respectively. On the other hand, he made various contributions to social education such as working as a chairperson of Japan Youth Hostel Association. In 1964, he purchased this residence of chief strainer and often stayed here since then. The original transcript of "Haru-no-sakamiti (Sloping road in spring)" that was broadcasted in NHK and created the Yagyu boom in 1971 was also written in this residence.


Village of Yagyu