Even during the medieval period, the space was extremely precious in Japan, so the homes of the lower class population were often very small. This was the case not only for towns people, but also for lower rank samurai. They were living next to the lord’s house, in row houses called nagaya, long constructions housing several small homes under the same roof.

Photographed here is a perfectly preserved nagaya row house of the Kuchiba Residence in the Hagi castle town. Unlike the row houses of the large cities, the samurai versions were also used as guard-rooms, so sometimes they were built with a gate (mon in Japanese) in the middle, thus they were called nagaya-mon.

Kuchiba Residence, Hagi-jo Jokamachi, Hagi, Yamaguchi

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