文書蔵の三階へ / Into the Third Floor of the Historical Document Storehouse

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清水歴史散策（Ｉ）

第壱話　蒲原の木屋江戸資料館を訪ねて ３．文書蔵の三階へ

http://www.isobekaikei.jp/pages/122/

木屋江戸資料館──文書蔵の三階で出会う“記録を遺す”という仕事

木屋江戸資料館の見学動線をたどると、文書蔵の急な木階段の先に三階が現れます。安全面の配慮から通常公開は一階のみですが、今回は特別に踏み込んだ最上層の様子をご紹介します。昇り口に設けられた小さな明り取りの窓は、かつて階下の足音だけで来客を判別したと伝わる見張りの工夫。上がった先は九畳敷きの和室で、床の間と人の胴回りを優に超える太さの梁が目を引きます。梁には「南無妙法蓮華経」と書かれた守り札が掲げられ、書庫であると同時に祈りの場でもあったことを物語ります。

この部屋に残る襖は破れが目立ちますが、かつては丸山応挙筆と伝わる絵が全面に貼られていたと言われます。明治期の売却で失われたものの、下張りの古紙がそのまま残され、専門家は一枚ずつ剝がして未整理資料の手掛かりを探しています。

三階の中央には、蔵の建立者が書き残した日記を収める桐箱が置かれています。藍染の布表紙と防虫効果の高い特製和紙のおかげで、約二百年を経ても虫食いや劣化がほとんど見られません。資料はこうして「後世のために残す」ことを前提に作られ、保管環境まで計算されたものだと館の方は説明します。

分類を終えた約三千点の帳簿や日記は、中性紙の袋に包まれたうえで茶箱へ納められています。箱の蓋裏には「弘化四年　大福帳四冊　仕切帳一冊」のように内容と年次が墨書きされ、必要な記録がすぐ取り出せる仕組みです。箱書きを残した守亮（もりあき）は安政江戸地震や黒船来航を体験した人物で、彼の日記と文書を照合すると同時代の出来事が具体的に浮かび上がります。

蔵内に漂うのはカビ臭ではなく古書特有の紙の香り。柱のわずかなねじれが確認されるため見学は一階のみですが、展示室には三階と同じ茶箱が配置され、内部保管の技法や帳簿の実物を間近で見ることができます。大きな葛籠や手書きの仕切帳を前にすると、木屋家が「資料は未来の読者のためにある」と考えていた姿勢が静かに伝わってきます。

旧東海道の宿場町だった蒲原を歩く際、木屋江戸資料館は過去と向き合う足がかりになります。蔵に刻まれた保存の知恵に触れたあと街道に出れば、帳簿の数字や日記の筆跡が、石畳の先に続く歴史の実感へとつながるはずです。現地ではまず一階展示から、その丁寧な“遺し方”を体感してみてください。

Kiya Edo Archive — Encountering the Craft of Preservation on the Storehouse’s Third Floor

Follow the visitor route through the Kyoya Edo Archive and you will eventually reach a steep wooden staircase leading toward the manuscript storehouse. For reasons of structural safety only the ground level is normally open, yet this overview introduces what lies one flight above: a floor seldom seen by the public. A small “light window” beside the stair once allowed residents to identify visitors by the sound of their steps alone. At the top stretches a nine-tatami Japanese room, complete with a recessed alcove and a single beam so wide it exceeds the girth of an adult torso. A protective talisman inscribed Namu Myōhō Renge-kyō hangs from that beam, reminding us that the room served both as archive and as devotional space.

The sliding doors now show extensive tears, but oral tradition maintains that paintings attributed to Maruyama Ōkyo once covered every panel; they were sold off in the Meiji era, leaving only the underlayer of scrap paper. Conservators today lift these sheets one by one, searching for materials that have never been catalogued.

At the room’s center rests a paulownia box that houses the diary of the storehouse’s builder. The volume is bound in indigo-dyed cloth and written on insect-repellent handmade paper; consequently, even after roughly two centuries its pages display almost no damage. Staff explain that both manuscript and building were conceived from the outset “for future readers,” with storage conditions carefully calculated to ensure long-term survival.

Roughly 3,000 ledgers and journals whose cataloguing is complete are wrapped in neutral-pH envelopes and placed inside tea chests. On the underside of each lid one finds inked notes such as “Kōka 4 (1847): four daifuku-chō, one shikiri-chō,” allowing researchers to retrieve materials at a glance. The person who prepared many of these labels—Moriaki—lived through the 1855 Ansei Edo earthquake and even travelled to view Commodore Perry’s “Black Ships.” When his diary is read alongside the boxed documents, the events of that turbulent period emerge with unusual clarity.

The atmosphere here is defined not by mold but by the dry, slightly sweet scent of old paper. Because time has introduced a faint torsion to the pillars, visitors are restricted to the first floor; nevertheless, identical tea chests have been installed in the ground-floor gallery so that handling techniques and representative volumes can be examined up close. Standing before a large wicker trunk or a neatly scripted shikiri-chō, one senses the Kyoya family’s conviction that “records exist for the benefit of readers yet to come.”

When you explore Kambara—a post-station on the historic Tōkaidō highway—this archive offers a point of departure for engaging with the past. After learning how knowledge was safeguarded within the storehouse, step back onto the old roadway: the figures in the ledgers and the brushstrokes of the diaries will begin to resonate with the very stones beneath your feet. Start with the ground-floor exhibition and experience the meticulous art of “leaving things behind” for yourself.