British trading house street and Anjin House in Hirado.

Information board translations

British trading house street

Eikoku Shōkan Dōri
#16
The Lord of the Hirado domain, Daimyo Matsuura, and the members of the British
trading house.

The Director of the trading post, Richard Cox (sic), invited the lord of the Hirado
Domain, Matsuura Takanobu (Muneyo), his senior vassals, and his samurai
companions to Kakunodate. They had a Japanese lunch, an English dinner, and
were hospitable to their heart's content. Cox (sic), the chief of the trading house, and
the members of the trading house were invited to lunch at Takanobu's mansion and
were warmly welcomed. Captain Li Dan was also present. In addition, residents were
invited to the trading house and provided with meals and baths. There were gifts of
sake, fish and other things from the neighbours. Such warm-hearted exchanges
flourished.
Hirado British Trading Post 400th Anniversary Hirado Rotary Club

Anjin House

Englishman William Adams was cast ashore in Bungo in 1600 after arriving via the
Straits of Magellan as the navigator of the Dutch fleet. Of the five ships in the fleet,
only one ship, de Liefde, arrived in Japan. In the year of the Battle of Sekigahara, as
a foreign affairs adviser to Ieyasu Tokugawa, he received a Chigyochi* in Hemi
Village, Miura District, Kanagawa Prefecture, and took the name Miura Anjin.
Shigenobu Matsuura, the lord of Hirado Castle, sent the crew of de Liefde to Pattani
in Malaya. Many merchants from Sakai gathered in Hirado and prospered as the
headquarters of the West. Anjin did not live in the trading post from a standpoint of
fairness with the other foreign countries that traded with Japan, but instead lived in
the Yajiemon Tokida residence, raising the British flag while at home. He fell ill at the
age of 57 and died on May 16, 1620 and is buried in the distant foreigner's cemetery.
This mansion is called Anjin no Yakata because Anjin Miura lived in it at the time.

* (enfeoffment, or the right to direct control of a certain asset) in the form of shoryo
(territory) including the peasants living there to their vassals as a stipend