Site of the former Aida Elementary School
After visiting the former Aida Junior High School building, a view to the west of the road revealed an open space that looked like a schoolyard.
Walked up the hill a little and approached it, I saw a sign indicating an evacuation site.
The sign reads: ‘Evacuation site: former Aida Elementary School’. The kanji for ‘former’ was pasted on later.
So this was the site of a elementary school.
When I checked about the Aida Elementary School, I found that it was closed in March 2013.
In Shiga Village, the elementary schools (Nishikibe, Nakagawa, Aida and Gojo Elementary Schools) in the former villages before the merger of the four villages were maintained; in 2005, Shiga Village was incorporated into Matsumoto City and the elementary schools became Matsumoto Municipal Elementary Schools. But due to a decrease in the number of children, it was decided to integrate them.
They built a new school building 500m south of the Aida Elementary School site and opened the school as Matsumoto Municipal Shiga Elementary School in April 2013.
The original plan was to build a new school building on the site of Aida Elementary School and open the school in 2011, but the school changed location after archaeological remains were discovered around the elementary school site and it was decided to excavate and preserve them.
This site is called the Tonomura site, which will be explained later.
Let’s first check on the elementary school building.
The school building has been completely demolished, so we will check it on an aerial photograph.
The photo was taken in 2011, so at the time the photo was taken, Aida Junior High School had already moved and two gateball halls had been built on the site. The elementary school was a year and a half before it closed.
The gymnasium (probably) is to the west of the schoolyard, and the main school building was to the west of it. There is another school building to the north of the main school building, which looks older. Photos on the internet show that the school building to the north was a wooden school building. There was a swimming pool on its northern side.
The site is now managed by Matsumoto City.
I am standing on what used to be the schoolyard, and the school building was at the back of it. The north school building seems to had been on the stone wall at the front.
The building was completely gone, but some stone monuments and other structures remain.
There was a stone pillar with a hole in it, but I wondered what it was, perhaps the remains of a school flag raising stand or something.
A statue of Kinjiro Ninomiya, a well-known figure at the elementary schools.
The monument of the child society’s song is new.
The back of the monument shows that it was erected in October 2000, but it was built by graduates of the 1943 school year. It was erected by those who entered Aida Elementary School in 1937 as a commemoration of their 70th birthday.
There was a sundial, although it was hidden by trees.
A monument to the school song and a monument with the words ‘Yoku Manabi Yoku Asobe’ (Study hard and play hard).
The school song monument was erected in 1979.
The one with the words ‘Yoku Manabi Yoku Asobe’ was erected in 1994, and was apparently taken from the elementary school’s textbook of moral used at the time, as it was built by a graduate from the class of 1934.
I should have climbed up to on the stone wall, but it was evening and I did not look at it.
Recent aerial photographs show that nothing seems to remain to the west of the gateball hall.
If the elementary school had simply moved, the school song monument would have been moved, but as the school was created through the merger of four schools, the old school song monument could not be moved, so it must have been left as it was.
Now, let me write about the Tonomura Site.
This is an explanatory board for the Tonomura Site, which stands a little further away. It is placed at the starred position in the aerial photo above.
This place used to be the schoolyard of Aida Junior High School, then excavations were carried out from 2009 to 2010 and the remains of Muromachi period construction were found. The remains of a 1.2 m high, 30 m long stone pile, and the remains of pillars, walls and the furnaces. As well as earthenware such as plates and jars and tea utensils such as high-grade celadon bowls in the vicinity.
It has been legend since the Edo period that the residence of the Aida clan, a warrior clan that ruled this area in the Middle Ages, was located in this area. The part enclosed by the green line on the map is estimated to be the area.
The part circled in orange on the map is the assumed area of the Tonomura Site.
Subsequently, excavations of Tonomura Site were carried out up to the ninth stage by 2017.
In 2013 and 2016, part of the site of the former Aida Elementary School was also excavated.
As a result of the excavations, the stone walls and other structures at the site seem to have been constructed between the mid- and late-15th century. From the structure, it is more likely to be the remains of religious institutions such as a temple than a warrior’s house.
Excavation seems to have reached a break at present, but perhaps the sites of the former elementary school and the former junior high school will be excavated again in the future? If so, will the former Aida Junior High School building be revived as an archaeological site-related facility like a museum…?
[Reference] (written in Japanese)
“Tonomura Site and Their Period VII: Record of the Report Meeting of the Heisei 28 Excavation and Investigation" (Matsumoto City Board of Education / 2018)
“Matsumoto City Cultural Property Investigation Report No.239 Tonomura Site and Kokuzosan Castle Ruins" (Matsumoto City Board of Education / 2020)