Kirime-en

What a kirime-en is

A kirime-en is a veranda whose boards are laid across its width rather than along its length, so that their end grain lines the outer edge and a row of fine joints shows when the veranda is seen from the side. It stands opposite the Kure-en.

It appears above all as the walkway round a shrine hall, and records almost always name it together with its Kōran. The main hall of Kasuga Shrine in Oita Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is described as a three-bay Kirizuma-zukuri hall with a one-bay copper-roofed canopy, ringed by one of these verandas with a bracketed railing, with hinged lattice shutters at the front and panelled doors in the first bay of each side.

The subsidiary Itsukushima Shrine in the same precinct, from the Meiji period, is described as a single-bay Nagare-zukuri hall with a knobbed railing on the same kind of veranda and two wooden steps at the front. The subsidiary Yasaka Shrine, from the later Edo period, carries its railed veranda round three sides.

Records specify how far the veranda goes, whether round three sides or the whole perimeter, so that detail can be read straight from the entry.

Paired with the railing

All three of those examples carry a railing, and the entries distinguish between a bracketed one, a knobbed one, and one simply noted as present. The veranda and its railing are treated as a single composition.

Because the floor stands well above the ground on a shrine hall, wooden steps are added at the front. The Itsukushima entry records two of them.

Identifying the type works as it does for the other kind: look at the direction of the boards. Access to a shrine veranda is often restricted, but the end grain along the outer edge can be read from the ground.