The black storehouses follow the river. In Tochigi, the stretch from Kauemoncho into Yamatocho runs along the Uzuma, and plastered storehouses and shop-fronted kura stand in a line beside it, put up when goods moved by water. The arrangement still shows the logic: the backs of the buildings face the river, where cargo came and went, and the fronts face the street, where customers did. Two audiences, two elevations, and no confusion between them. It is a plan, even if nobody drew it. The district was designated a preservation area in 2012.

Black lacquer plaster is expensive to apply and expensive to maintain, and the fact that a whole run of buildings could be finished that way says more about the volume of trade here than any figure would. It is a finish that announces solvency without saying a word. Tokyo is about seventy minutes away on the Tobu line, which places the town at the outer edge of the commuter belt, and the shops that a town needs are all present in the centre. Nobody has thinned the working streets to make room for the historic ones, and the two overlap for most of their length. You can buy a screwdriver within sight of a designated building.

When the route changes, the town's orientation stops matching it. Nothing has moved goods along this river for a very long time, and the storehouses still face it, with no sign that anyone intends to turn them around. An orientation that no longer serves any purpose is the most honest thing a preserved street can show you, more honest than any explanatory panel, because nobody arranged it to be seen.