Ehime · SeiyoNo.949★★Open in map →
Unomachi Historic District
A merchant street in inland Ehime where white-plastered townhouses stand in an unbroken row. The quarter is a nationally designated preservation district, and a plastered schoolhouse with arched windows stands on the rise at its upper end.
- FromMatsuyama Station
- ~1 h 15 minJR limited express + walk
- Get off atUnomachi Station (JR Yosan Line)
- On foot
- Unomachi Historic District
The sweet spot
Unomachi is a nationally designated district with signboards and a guide service, so it is not an undiscovered place. It simply sits off the usual Shikoku circuit: visitors to Ehime tend to stop at Matsuyama or Uchiko, and the Uwa basin is another stretch further down the line. What you walk here is a lived-in town, not a museum street.
Where it is
29 more notes in Ehime · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- The preserved streetwhite plaster, lattice fronts and decorated ridge tiles on townhouses from the Edo period to early Showa
- Suemitsu Housea merchant house on the street, listed by the city as a cultural property
- Uwa Mingu-kana townhouse museum of the everyday tools once used in this basin
- Kaimei Gakkoa two-storey plastered schoolhouse with arched windows, now an education museum
- Shingidothe domain school hall that housed Kaimei Gakko's first classes
How to actually get there
- Matsuyama Station → Unomachi Station (JR Yosan Line, Limited Express Uwakai, a little over an hour).
- Unomachi Station → the preserved district (walk east, under ten minutes).
- Walk the street uphill past the townhouses to Kaimei Gakko and Shingido on the rise.
- JR Yosan Line limited express from Matsuyama
- Matsuyama Station →(Limited Express Uwakai)→ Unomachi Station, a little over an hour. Every Uwakai service stops here. From the station the district is under ten minutes on foot to the east. Check the fare and the departure time at the station on the day.
- Return from Unomachi Station
- Walk back west to Unomachi Station and take a northbound Uwakai to Matsuyama. This is a country line, so read the last northbound departure off the platform board before you settle into the street for the afternoon.
About the place
Unomachi sits on the floor of the Uwa basin, an inland pocket of south-western Ehime ringed by hills. The preservation district covers about 4.9 hectares and keeps the plot lines of the Edo period almost intact. Townhouses with heavy tiled roofs line the street, some turning a gable to it and some an eave. Lattice screens, carved brackets and decorated ridge tiles differ from house to house. Among them stand Western-style buildings from the Meiji and Taisho years, a school and a church, wearing the same street face as their neighbours.
How to enjoy it
Seiyo City lists Kaimei Gakko as open from 9am to 5pm with last entry at 4:30, closed on Mondays, so a weekday lets you take the museums and the street in one go. Arrive on a Monday and the street is still walkable, since it is a public road with no gate and no ticket. Allow an hour for the walk, two if you go inside.
Background & history
The town began as a castle town of the medieval Saionji clan of Iyo and grew under the Uwajima domain into a rural commercial centre. It was a post station on the Uwajima highway and the gate town of Meisekiji, the forty-third temple of the Shikoku pilgrimage. The school on the rise, Kaimei Gakko, was built in 1882 in the pseudo-Western manner then spreading through Japan, and was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1997. The district itself was designated in 2009.
Before you go
- Cash
- Walking the street is free. Kaimei Gakko and Uwa Mingu-kan charge admission — Seiyo City listed 700 yen for an adult at the time of checking. Carry some cash for admissions and small purchases.
- Before you go
- The museums close on Mondays, or the following day when a Monday falls on a public holiday, and over the New Year period. The street is a public road with no gate, so it can still be walked on those days. It is fully outdoors and takes the weather as it comes.
- Another way
- By car, leave the Matsuyama Expressway at the Seiyo-Uwa interchange; Seiyo City puts the drive from Matsuyama at about an hour. Free parking is available beside the district.
- After you get off
- From Unomachi Station, walk east along the town's main street. The preserved quarter begins under ten minutes away, and the ground rises gently toward Kaimei Gakko at the far end.