Fukuroi · JP

Kutsube Ichirizuka Site (Former Tōkaidō Milestone Mounds)

The Kutsube Ichirizuka Site marks one of the old distance posts of the Tōkaidō, Japan's great Edo-period highway between Edo and Kyoto. An ichirizuka was a pair of tree-topped earthen mounds raised on either side of the road at intervals of one ri (about 3.9 km), counting out the distance from the Bridge of Japan, Nihonbashi in Edo. This was the 60th mound on the route — the quiet spot where, four centuries ago, a traveller could read just how far from the capital they had come. The original Edo mounds no longer survive anywhere in Fukuroi, but a thoughtfully reconstructed mound now stands at the gate of Fukuroi East Elementary School in Hirooka, and a companion marker for the northern mound sits just across the road. The site is best enjoyed not as a single monument but as a stop along the Tōkaidō walking trail, framed by the avenue of pines that the town has worked to restore.