The shipwrights and the blacksmiths lived next door to one another. Hamashōzumachi and Hamakanayamachi sit at the mouth of the Hama River, a port quarter and an artisans' quarter side by side, with thatched and tiled townhouses along narrow lanes. Carpenters who built boats and smiths who worked iron occupied the same few streets for an obvious reason: a boat needs metal fittings, and the two trades are useless to a harbour without each other.

Keeping wood and iron within shouting distance meant that repairs and new building could both be dealt with on the spot, without waiting for anything to be brought in, so the port did not stop working while a part was ordered. Hamashōzumachi and Hamakanayamachi were designated an Important Preservation District in July 2006, and the district is within walking distance of Hizen-Hama station. Saga city is about forty minutes away by car, and this coast faces the Ariake Sea, with its tidal flats and the largest tidal range of any water in the country.

An artisan in a port has no work when no ships come. Working hours therefore moved with the arrivals and departures rather than with the clock, and since the arrivals were governed by the tide, the tide table effectively set the timetable of the whole town. Everything here was arranged around that. The lanes are narrow because a width sufficient for a person carrying a load on their back was all that was ever needed here, and nothing in the centuries since has required them to be widened. They are, in that sense, correctly sized.