Oshoya Memorial Hall

The Yabu City Oshoya Memorial Hall is located on a hill behind the kojyo village in Yabu City . This building is a preserved residence of Nagashima Zen'emon, a headman who ruled over 18 villages in the Izushi domain during the late Edo period. On the first floor of the annex, there is a sliding door painting of Taikobo by the artist Kobayashi Takusen. In addition, there is a plaque on display by Baron Kitagaki Kawara , who served as the governor of Kyoto , that reads, "The fresh colors and fragrance of spring." At the back of the detached building there is an Oribe lantern, which is said to have been designed by Furuta Oribe and is also known as a Christian lantern. The detached house, decorated with sliding door paintings and Chinese poetry by artists such as Kobayashi Takusen, Ikeda Kunimichi, Ikeda Soan, Ema Tenko, and Tani Tetsuomi, is a magnificent building that can be called a museum of rural culture. The house of a wealthy farmer, surrounded by high Ishigaki and built on a hill alongside a valley stream, represents the typical rural landscape of Tajima, and it was opened as the Yabu Town Folk Museum, the first museum in the Tajima region to be housed in a wealthy farmer's house (it was renamed Yabu City Oshoya Memorial Museum in 2004). It has been selected as one of the "100 Hyogo Cultural Sites" by the Hyogo Prefecture.