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Aki Nora-dokei and Doi Kachu

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

Nora-dokeiDoi KachuAkisamurai districtfield clock

Photo: Ervaar Japan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) · original

Aki Nora-dokei and Doi Kachu is part of why Kochi rewards travelers who read a little before they show up.

In 1887 a young landowner in Aki called Hatakeyama Taichi bought a clock, took it apart to work out how it functioned, and then built his own — a large one, mounted in a tower on his house so that farmers in the surrounding paddies could see the time from the fields. It is called the Nora-dokei, the field clock, and it is still there, a white wooden tower above a tiled roof in the middle of farmland.

Five minutes north is Doi Kachu, the samurai quarter of the Aki domain, designated an Important Preservation District in 2012. It is walled and hedged in the Tosa manner with clipped bamboo and stone, and the Nomura residence — the oldest surviving building, from around 1830 — is open and free. The two together take an hour and are the reason to stop in a small city on the eastern Kochi coast.

Visiting essentials

How long to allow

60–90 minutes

Best season

Year-round

Hours

Streets open at all times | Nomura residence open during daytime hours

Closed: Open year-round

Admission

Free | Nomura residence free

Reaching the site

Access notes

Doi, Aki. By car from Geisei-nishi IC on the Kochi Eastern Expressway, a short walk from Aki Station on the Tosa Kuroshio Railway, or a short walk from the Nora-dokei-mae stop on the Aki city Genki bus. Free to visit; the Nomura residence in the Doi Kachu district is the only building open to the public and is free. Parking beside the Nora-dokei, from which the samurai quarter is about a short walk north.

Historical notes & tips

**The clock is a homemade object.** Hatakeyama built it in 1887 after dismantling an imported clock to learn how one worked, with no training. That fact is the reason to look at it rather than photograph it and move on. **Go into the Nomura residence.** It is the oldest building in the district, dates from around 1830, is open and costs nothing. The rest of the quarter is private houses. **Look at the hedges.** Tosa samurai districts use clipped bamboo and stone rather than the plaster walls of other regions. Once seen it distinguishes this from Izumi or Chiran. **Park at the clock.** The car park beside the Nora-dokei is the practical base and the quarter is five minutes north on foot. **Aki is on the Gomen-Nahari line.** The Tosa Kuroshio Railway runs along this coast from Kochi, which makes the town reachable without a car, though it is a thirty-minute walk from the station.

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