Oya History Museum - Subterranean Cave — Attraction in Utsunomiya

Took the no 45 bus from the stop outside the railway station to the end of the line where the museum in the mine is situated. There’s a short walk from the bus stop to the entrance where you buy the ticket and can read a bit more about the stone. There’s also a gift shop. Then you enter and go down a few flights of steps until you come to the entrance of a huge cavern. It’s very atmospheric with colored lighting on distant walls. It’s also quite chilly. There is a well defined route and there are exhibits to look at with descriptions also in English. The route goes left and round and into further caverns and there are more steps. Eventually you come fully round in a circle to the beginning where you can see some old machinery used in the cutting of the stone. I learnt a lot going round the mine workings and I would have liked to have bought some Oya stone but as I’m backpacking I didn’t want to carry any more weight. I walked back to the bus stop but the 45 was a long time coming so I started walking and about 45 minutes later I caught a No 1 bus back to the railway station where I had left my back packs in a locker to continue my journey to Tokyo. I paid separately for my bus fares ( using my suica card) and entrance ticket which seemed the cheapest way to do it. I couldn’t see the advantage of buying a...

Visited in October 2020

The quarry-turned-cavern museum is a bit far from Utsunomiya downtown, connected by just a narrow prefectural road and if you bother to use public transportation, an hour bus ride from the central station.

Nevertheless it's a unique experience because to my knowledge, it's the only subterranean museum in Japan. Worth a visit especially if you are into history and art. The cavern turned out to be much bigger than what I expected. It's said it started relatively small since the Edo period and later the exploitation of the stone picked up during the industrialization of Japan afterwards (AFAIK it was only closed for commercial quarrying in 1970s). In some places, the differences of the etched bedrock and walls due to manual and modern mechanical masonry techniques are shown.

There were also interesting permanent art exhibitions inside the cavern. They also exhibited the photos of films and TV series that took place in the cavern, one of them is cult TV series Yuusha Yoshihiko (I think it was one of the episodes in...

Easy day trip by car from Western Tokyo area just outside of Utsunomiya. In nearby Oya you can visit Oyaji Temple which has been carved right into the cliff side, the huge Kannon Statue, and the Oya History Museum which is a subterranean quarry/cave so large they built airplane frames inside it during WWII. The cave is naturally cool too which feels great on a hot summer day. To get to the Oya area use Google Maps to route to ‘The Standard Bakers’ as there is a large, free parking lot right across the street. Grab a sweet treat at the bakery and then walk up the stone pathway to the Kannon statue, then to Oyaji Temple. From the temple it’s ~10 minute walk along the road to the Oya History Museum or you can walk back to your car and drive there as there is a parking lot outside...