Hiketa Historic Townscape
licensed photograph663highland / CC BY 2.5

East Kagawa · HigashikagawaNo.628★Open in map →

Hiketa Historic Townscape

historyOff the trail — and worth it

A port town at the eastern edge of Kagawa, where sailing ships once waited for the wind. The main street still holds its merchant houses and soy-sauce warehouses, and two of them open their doors to visitors.

  1. FromTakamatsu Station
  2. ~40 minUzushio limited express, direct
  3. Get off atHiketa Station (JR Kotoku Line)
  4. On foot
  5. Hiketa Historic Townscape
Directions ↗

The sweet spot

Hiketa is not a famous townscape and has no gate around it. It is quiet mostly because it sits at the far end of the prefecture, past the point where day trips from Takamatsu usually turn back. Nothing here is staged for that: the two houses that open are a working brewery and the town's own visitor hall.

Where it is

19 more notes in Kagawa · open the map →

What to look for — in walking order

Sanshu Izutsu YashikiAsturio Cantabrio / CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. Hiketa Stationan unstaffed stop on the Kotoku Line, the walk-in gateway to the old street
  2. Sanshu Izutsu Yashikithe Sano family's merchant house, now the town's visitor hall with a shop, a café and a wasanbon sugar-moulding workshop
  3. Kamebishithe soy-sauce brewery a few minutes along the street, its warehouses open by advance booking
  4. The old main streetwide-fronted merchant houses and latticed mushiko windows running inland from the harbour
  5. Honda Hachiman shrinethe town's tutelary shrine at the inland end, the point the old townscape runs to

How to actually get there

  1. Takamatsu Station → Hiketa Station (JR Kotoku Line, Uzushio limited express, about 40 min, no change).
  2. Hiketa Station → Sanshu Izutsu Yashiki (walk about 10 min north).
  3. Walk on to Kamebishi, a few minutes further along the same street.
  4. Follow the old street inland to the Honda Hachiman shrine, then turn back toward the station.
Uzushio limited express from Takamatsu
Takamatsu Station →(JR Kotoku Line, Uzushio limited express)→ Hiketa Station, about 40 minutes with no change of train. Local trains run the same line but take roughly twice as long. From the station it is about a ten-minute walk north to the old street.
Return from Hiketa Station
The Uzushio runs back toward Takamatsu through the day, but Hiketa is an unstaffed station and services are spaced rather than frequent. Fix your return train before you start walking, and allow a few minutes on the platform to sort out the ticket.
Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Hiketa is the last town in Kagawa before the Tokushima line. Its harbour faces the Kii Channel, and the place grew as a kazamachi port, somewhere ships lay up until the wind turned in their favour. The old main street runs inland from the water toward the Honda Hachiman shrine, and the buildings along it are what the trade left behind: wide-fronted merchant houses, latticed mushiko windows, and the long plastered warehouses of soy-sauce brewers. Two of the addresses still open to visitors. The rest is a working street rather than a preserved set, so the houses are lived in and the walk is short enough to take slowly.

How to enjoy it

Start at the visitor hall. It opens mid-morning and closes mid-afternoon, and those hours set the shape of the visit; from there walk on to the brewery while the street is still in full daylight. Book the warehouse tour ahead if you want to see the straw mats, since the shop takes visitors without one. The street is short enough that a slow loop out to the shrine and back fits inside one gap in the train timetable.

Background & history

Ships have been calling at Hiketa since the Muromachi period, when the harbour served as somewhere to wait for a fair wind out toward the Kii Channel. Soy sauce followed the ships. The Okada family's brewery, Kamebishi, has been making it on this street since 1753 and still cultures its koji mould on straw mats, the mushiro method; its buildings are on the national register of tangible cultural properties. A few doors along stands the Sano house, known in the trade as Izutsuya and dealing in sake and soy sauce, now open as Sanshu Izutsu Yashiki.

Before you go

Cash
The street itself is free to walk. The visitor hall charges a small admission for the main house only; its shop, café and workshops are separate. The brewery's warehouse tour has to be booked ahead — three working days at the time of writing — while its shop can be entered without one.
Before you go
This is a lived-in street, so the houses are private except where a sign says otherwise. The visitor hall keeps daytime hours and closes on Wednesdays, staying open when a public holiday falls on one. The walk is flat and short, but there is little shelter between the station and the street.
Another way
By road, the Takamatsu Expressway's Hiketa interchange is about five minutes from the street. Long-distance buses from Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto stop at the Hiketa expressway bus stop, which is a separate point from the JR station.
After you get off
From Hiketa Station, walk north about ten minutes toward the harbour. The old street begins where the modern road narrows between the merchant houses.