Takanezawa Town

Storehouse kept, another's stone reused.

Chokkura Plaza, old storehouse

Photo by 交通アキ② (CC BY 4.0)

01 ／ Spring-fed pond

A pond where a girl is said to havethrown herself in survives in Kamitakanezawa.

This spring-fed pond in the Gogyogawa lowland of Kamitakanezawa is a Town-designated Historic Site. A legend remains of a poor, beautiful girl called Odakisan, who threw herself into it. Most of the spring-fed ponds and channels once found in Kamitakanezawa have vanished with construction work; Odakisan is kept safe by local people.

Town Historic Site, 2001
36 m x 10 m
Spring-fed pond and channel

02 ／ Shrine

A main hall whose straight roof plane bendspartway and runs on to the front porch.

The main hall of Yasuzumi Shrine, in single-bay nagare-zukuri style with a thick-board roof, is a Tangible Cultural Property designated by the prefecture. The shrine notes that an ink inscription on a pillar beneath the floor reads "Horeki 4 (1754)", and calls the way the roof plane bends and runs on to the front porch very unusual. The hall stands inside a protective cover. The photo shows the shrine's gate.

Prefectural designation, 1978
Ink inscription of Horeki 4
Single-bay nagare-zukuri

03 ／ Festival

Four Kuwakubo hamlets each thrusttheir bonten into the worship hall.

This is the Bonten Festival at Kamo Shrine in Kuwakubo, held on the second Sunday of March each year. Local men carry bonten, bamboo poles tipped with tassels of Japanese paper, up the steps at a run and thrust them into the worship hall. It is said to be a festival praying for a good harvest, or one that calls thunder.

Second Sunday of March
Four hamlets
Town designation, 2006

Living here

Ten minutes' walk from Hoshakuji Station's east exit to the town office.

about 30,000 people
Rural district town

The town spans 10.7 km east to west and 11.5 km north to south. Hills of the Yamizo range lie in the east, paddy fields in the centre, and shops and housing around JR Hōshakuji Station in the west. There are three stations in town: Hōshakuji, Niita and Shimotsuke-Hanaoka, and Hōshakuji is where the Tohoku Main Line and Karasuyama Line branch. Getting around, there is the demand-responsive service Tantan-go, which needs advance registration and a phone booking, at 100 yen a ride.

People living here: 29,229people
Area: 70.87km²
Households: 12,205households
Rent (average for rentals): 46,239yen
Healthcare: 2 hospitals ／ 16 clinics

Area and habitable land at the same scalee-Stat B1101 / B1103

Children waiting for childcare: —6 nurseries and similar
Home purchase subsidy: —
Average annual temperature: —

These 3 items are waiting on a nationwide data source. We do not fill them with estimates.

Shape

Borders 5 municipalities.

Takanezawa Town in Japan36.631°N 139.987°E

Territory of Takanezawa Town

Boundaries: National Land Numerical Information (N03)Lakes: National Land Numerical Information (Lake Data), MLIT. Processed by Machigatari. Prepared with the approval of the Director-General of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, using its Digital Map 25000 (Spatial Data Framework) and Digital Map 25000 (Place Names and Public Facilities). (承認番号平27情使、第585号)

North to south

11.3km

芳賀町, さくら市, 那須烏山市, 宇都宮市, 市貝町

Travel times per leg are not published by the municipality, so they are not shown.

Takanezawa Town isthis kind of town.

01At Chokkura Plaza by the station, an old storehouse was kept and the stone of a dismantled one reused for new walls; the design office says the lattice of the station ceiling extends the pattern of those stone walls
02In Kamitakanezawa, Odakisan is a Town-designated Historic Site with a legend of a girl who drowned herself, and at Kamo Shrine in Kuwakubo four hamlets each thrust their bonten into the worship hall
03The main hall of Yasuzumi Shrine, a prefecture-designated building, carries an inscription of Horeki 4 beneath the floor, and four districts in town have handed down the Tensai festival of the seventh lunar month

If something caught your eye, ask the town itself.

Takanezawa Town official site ↗Wikipedia ↗