Shounji Temple Bell Tower

Shounji Shoro: A Late Meiji Bell Tower on a Cobblestone Base in Inuyama

Eighteen square meters. That is the entire footprint of the bell tower at Shounji, a Rinzai Zen temple in the southern quarter of Inuyama's old castle town in Aichi Prefecture. Built in the late Meiji era, sometime between 1898 and 1912, this small structure packs an entire vocabulary of traditional Japanese temple carpentry into a single bay, and in 2012 it was registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property alongside the temple's main hall and Kobo Daishi hall.

The tower belongs to the hakamagoshi type, named for the flared skirt, or hakama, worn with formal Japanese dress. Its lower half spreads outward in a boarded slope, while the upper level opens into a belfry framed by round pillars under a hipped-and-gabled roof of sangawara tiles. The whole composition rises from a podium of rounded cobblestones, a detail more often associated with castle and storehouse foundations than with temple furniture.

Shounji itself is said to trace its origins to a hermitage founded in 1526, re-established on the present site in the castle town in 1653 and renamed Shounji in 1795. The bell tower stands facing the Kobo-do hall across the temple's approach path, so that anyone walking toward the main hall passes between the two.

Why the Tower Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the shoro on August 13, 2012 under the criterion of contributing to the historic scenery of the nation. Inuyama's fame rests on its castle, whose keep is a National Treasure, but the town below the castle is what gives a visit its texture: temple compounds, merchant houses, and quiet lanes in the district called Minamikoken. The three registered buildings at Shounji hold down the southern end of that landscape.

Look closely at the belfry and the reason for registration becomes concrete. The round pillars of the upper level are tied together by penetrating head beams, kashiranuki, and capped by a flat ring beam called a daiwa. On top of these sit bracket complexes of the mitsudo type, three small block-and-arm assemblies that carry the eaves, with kaerumata, so-called frog-leg struts, placed between them. A railing with gilt-bronze onion-shaped finials, giboshi, runs around the balcony, and the ceiling inside the belfry is coffered. Every one of these elements comes straight out of the classical carpenter's manual, executed here at an intimate scale and with deliberate restraint.

The official description praises exactly this quality: a bell tower of trim, orderly design with ornament held in check, shaping a tranquil temple landscape. Late Meiji builders could have reached for showy carving; the Shounji carpenters chose discipline instead.

What to Look For

Start at ground level. The podium of stacked cobblestones, tamaishi-zumi, gives the tower a slightly rustic footing that contrasts with the refined joinery above. Follow the boarded skirt upward and notice where it stops and the open belfry begins; that transition line is the visual signature of every hakamagoshi tower in Japan.

Then step back onto the approach path. The tower and the Kobo-do face each other across the path, and the pairing was clearly composed with the visitor's walk in mind. Framed between them, the main hall of 1934 waits at the rear of the grounds.

Bring binoculars or a zoom lens if you care about carpentry. The mitsudo brackets and the kaerumata struts between them are small and sit high, and the pleasure of this building lies in details measured in centimeters.

The temple grounds are open to visitors free of charge, and the tower is viewed from outside; there is no interior to enter beyond the belfry itself, which is not accessible to the public. Shounji stands about ten to fifteen minutes on foot from Meitetsu Inuyama Station, near the registered Horibe Family Residence, making it an easy addition to a castle town walk.