castle town

This area was named Zaioku-cho, the town of wood, and the business flourished. This dignified town house was built in 1920s. The outer wall of the first floor was covered with boards, and the outer wall of the second floor and the back of eaves were stuccoed. When you look at the coppered double doors and the large wing you will be astonished. 

Many fishing boats are moored to the breakwaters of the port of Akashi and the statue of Jizo facing north is enshrined around there. You can view Awaji Island and Akashi Kaikyo Bridge from here. There are fishing implement shops, refueling stations business of the port of Akashi. 

This is one of fishing implement shops, which have helped the business of fishermen, shipping agencies, boat smith and so on in Akashi. Though there were many fishing implement shops, now it is a rare shop because the number of shops is decreasing year by year. This is a two-story house with a gable roof covered with Japanese clay roof tile salt glazed of Akashi. 

This is the Inari Shrine that the community of Iwaya Shrine enshrines and the chief priest of Izanami Shrine performs a ritual on the Day of the Horse once a year. It was once on Mt Sekitan in the east, and then the locals in old Naka-machi made an effort to move it here before the widening of the road. 

This harborage appeared when Akashi became a castle town at the beginning of the Edo period and the port was constructed. Afterward, the port was extended west and the original area was reclaimed by the park. We see many boats crowded there in the each season. 

An imitative western-style building is at the street corner. The front door was a part of the corner cutting where it is just an opening now. This seems to have been built in 1920s because it has windows with long cross rails and small windows below big windows to sweep up the dust on the second floor. 

The Uonotana Shopping Mall reaches the Meitan Street at the west end of it and the triangle zone is around there. Once the street had been used for rails and went southward The terminal station of Akashi was near the Hama National Highway, however the rails were discontinued in 1931. 

You can find the old house and feel the atmosphere of the old town even around JR Akashi station where there are many modern buildings. This building has small fire-preventive wing walls on the lean-to roof which stop the spread of a fire from buildings facing the street. This wing wall is called “udatsu”. 

This building was designed by an architect Kishi Waro, completed in 2003 and received Akashi City Urban Scenery Award in 2004. This was designed with “Meridian Town Akashi” motif and you can see a straight line of light on the floor at noon.

The ferryboat lanes between Akashi City and Awaji Island also between Awaji Island and Naruto City opened to traffic as a part of Route 28 in 1954. People can drive to Shikoku through Awaji Island from Honshu. Afterward, the ferryboat landing was moved out of the port of Akashi, but we can see the trace now.

This facility is formally named “Akashi City Public Wholesale Market Branch of Department of Fisheries”. They say that there has been the fish market at the port since the Edo period. Fish caught in the morning are brought here for auction that starts at eleven thirty a.m. These are so fresh that people including customers in Osaka and Kobe love them. They call them “the day-time fish of Akashi”.

In 1949, a lot of buildings were destroyed by a bog fire around JR Akashi station. And then, many people built their buildings coppered to stop the spread of a fire. This building with green outer wall is one of them. Its ground plan is the octagon and it has an outstanding look in atmosphere of the port of Akashi.