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When you set foot in Oya Town, Utsunomiya City, the scene that unfolds before you is like a world beyond time. The Oya History Museum, located at the site of an Oya stone quarry, captivates visitors with its vast underground space.
With each step down the stairs, the noise of the outside world fades away, and a cool air envelops your skin. This enormous space, 30 meters underground and reaching depths of up to 60 meters at its deepest point, covers approximately 20,000 square meters and exudes a mysterious atmosphere reminiscent of an underground temple.
On the walls, you can see pickaxe marks from the hand-digging era, allowing you to sense the presence of the stonemasons even now. From the mid-Edo period to around 1960, they quarried Oya stone by hand. It is said they swung their pickaxes thousands of times to extract a single stone. Later, mechanization progressed and mining methods changed, but the vertical and horizontal lines left on the walls tell the story of changing times.
This underground space also has a history of being used as a secret army warehouse and as an underground munitions factory for Nakajima Aircraft during the war. After the war, it was used as a government rice storage facility, with its consistently low temperature and humidity providing an ideal environment for preservation.
Today, it is used as a venue for a variety of events, including concerts, plays, and art exhibitions. Its fantastical atmosphere has also made it a popular filming location for movies, dramas, and music videos. For example, many works such as the movie “Rurouni Kenshin” and the drama “The Brave Yoshihiko and the Seven Driven Heroes” have been filmed here.
In addition, the average temperature in the underground space is around 8°C, so many tourists visit seeking coolness even in summer. Therefore, it is recommended to bring a jacket when visiting.
The Oya History Museum is not just a tourist spot, but a place engraved with history, culture, and the lives of people. This mysterious space spreading deep underground allows visitors to feel the flow of time, the efforts of people, and the greatness of nature.