Nakasendo’s remaining vestiges of history

The above pictures are of a structure lining the old Nakasendo highway that passes through our city Warabi on its way from Tokyo to Kyoto. The highway has a history dating back to the 7th or 8th century, although its present form is linked more to the 17th century, when the Tokugawa Shogunate made it one of the 5 major highways to radiate out from Edo (present day Tokyo), to better facilitate centralized control of the country. Readers may be familiar with another one of the five, the Tokaido, which was memorialized in the Hiroshige print series “The 53 stations of the Tokaido”. Interestingly enough, the ukiyo-e artist Keisai Eisen was asked to do a similar series for the Nakasendo, which he started but never finished. Hiroshige came on to finish the project, which was entitled “69 stations of the Nakasendo”.

Mind you, on the parts of the Nakasendo that I’ve been on in this area, these old structures are few and far between, and I suspect were it not for governmental restrictions placed on their use because of their historical significance, there might be even less of these remaining. Indeed, on one stretch of Route 17 (the modern day Nakasendo), especially from Urawa to Oomiya just north of where we live, it’s quite a depressing site.

I’m not sure what this particular structure used to be, although the right part of the building has a storefront (now empty with windows darkened). Naoko suspects the left half of the structure was for storage, given the especially thick doors on the windows at top.

Here is an interesting site that features a wealth of information and commentary on the Nakasendo highway:
Nakasendo Highway: A Journey to the Heart of Japan