Ryuun-in Temple

A Princess's Vow on the Northern Frontier

Ryūun-in's story begins with grief. In 1625, Princess Katsuko, the wife of Matsumae Kinhiro (the seventh lord of the Matsumae clan and a daughter of the noble Ōinomikado family in Kyoto), founded the temple to pray for the soul of her young son who had died prematurely. The temple's name was taken from the boy's posthumous Buddhist name. Founded by Ryōten, a monk from the neighboring Hōdō-ji (the Matsumae clan's family temple), Ryūun-in stood as a powerful symbol of the courtly culture that the noblewomen of Kyoto brought with them to this northernmost outpost of Edo-period Japan.

Matsumae itself was the only domain in Hokkaido during the Edo period and served as the gateway between mainland Japan and the Ainu lands of Ezo. Its temple district, nestled behind Fukuyama Castle (Matsumae Castle), was home to more than fifteen temples and shrines—a concentration of religious architecture that earned the area the nickname "Little Kyoto of the North."

The Night the Temple Refused to Burn

In 1868, during the closing chapters of the Boshin War, the old shogunate forces under Hijikata Toshizō—the famous vice-commander of the Shinsengumi—advanced on Matsumae. The Matsumae domain, having defected to the new Meiji government, set fire to the castle town as it retreated and ordered the temple priests to burn their own halls so that nothing of value would fall into enemy hands. Most temples complied, or burned anyway in the chaos.

Ryūun-in's priest, however, quietly disobeyed. He let the soldiers pass without setting his temple ablaze. Because of that single act of conscience, Ryūun-in became the only temple in Matsumae's historic temple district to preserve its Edo-period buildings completely intact. Almost everything else that gave the area its "Little Kyoto" reputation was lost to flame.

The Main Hall: Carvings Carried Across the Sea

The main hall (Hondō) was built in 1842 by master carpenters from Miyagawa in Kashiwazaki, on the Sea of Japan coast of present-day Niigata Prefecture. They brought with them the elaborate carving traditions of the Echigo region, and the building is a showcase of their work. Dragons coil across the eaves; phoenixes, Chinese lions, and floral motifs adorn the brackets and transoms. Faint traces of vermilion pigment can still be seen in places on the dragon carvings at the front of the hall, suggesting that the building was once as vividly colored as the famous Nikkō Tōshōgū far to the south.

The hall is roofed with Echizen tiles—heavy ceramic tiles produced in what is now Fukui Prefecture and shipped north aboard the kitamaebune trading vessels that connected the Sea of Japan ports. Their presence on a Hokkaido roof is itself a small piece of maritime history, a reminder of how deeply the temple was woven into the trade networks of late Edo Japan.

The Priest's Quarters: Built by Local Hands

Standing immediately east of the main hall is the kuri, or priest's residence, built in the same year of 1842 but by local Matsumae carpenters rather than the visiting masters from Echigo. It is a substantial residential building with proper formal reception rooms, and it is among the oldest surviving examples of domestic-style wooden architecture in Hokkaido. For a region where harsh winters, fires, and modern redevelopment have erased almost all early wooden housing, the kuri is an unusually precious survivor—valuable not only as part of a temple complex but as a record of how people actually lived in northern Japan in the early nineteenth century.

The Bell Tower and the Storehouse

The bell tower (shōrō), built in 1846, completes the visual ensemble of the precinct. Its compact, well-proportioned form rises near the southwest corner of the main hall, and its bronze bell still calls out the hours over the quiet streets of Matsushiro. The storehouse (dozō), thought to have been completed by 1846 as well, stands at the southeast corner of the grounds—a thick-walled, fire-resistant structure of the kind that traditionally protected a temple's most precious treasures, documents, and ritual implements. Together with the main gate (sōmon) of 1851, these buildings form one of the most complete late-Edo temple compounds anywhere in Hokkaido.

Why It Was Designated an Important Cultural Property

When the Agency for Cultural Affairs designated Ryūun-in's buildings as Important Cultural Properties on January 21, 1992, the citation emphasized something rare: the survival of a complete late-Edo temple precinct. Many individual Edo-period buildings still stand in Japan, but the chance to see a main hall, priest's quarters, bell tower, storehouse, and gate together, in their original arrangement, is increasingly uncommon—especially in Hokkaido, where comparable wooden ensembles simply do not exist. The main hall's carvings reflect mainland Japanese craftsmanship at its peak, while the priest's quarters speak to the local building traditions of Matsumae itself. Together, they make Ryūun-in an architectural document of an entire era.

What to See When You Visit

Approaching from the south, visitors pass through the main gate and find the main hall directly ahead. Take time to study the carvings of the main hall before entering: the dragons on the front transom are the temple's signature, and the play of weathered wood and faint colour rewards a slow, careful look. To the east stands the kuri, to the west the smaller Ryūjindō (Dragon God Hall), where the deity protecting safe sea travel is enshrined—a fitting devotion for a port town built on northern sea trade.

In spring, one of Matsumae's three famous cherry trees, the Ezo-Kasumizakura, blooms inside the precinct, its pale flowers framing the gray-tiled roofs. The grounds also harbor the white-flowered dandelion, a botanical rarity in Hokkaido. The temple is also said to hold a votive ema painting from 1875 depicting a kitamaebune ship, dedicated by mariners thankful for safe passage.

Around the Temple

Ryūun-in sits at the heart of one of Japan's most concentrated historical landscapes. Within easy walking distance are Matsumae Castle (Fukuyama Castle), the only Japanese-style castle in Hokkaido and one of the country's last to be built in the traditional style; the graves of the Matsumae clan, designated a National Historic Site; and Kōzen-ji, famous for its "blood-vein cherry" tree. Hōdō-ji, the Matsumae clan's family temple to which Ryūun-in was originally attached, stands just to the north. In late April and early May the entire town turns into a vast cherry-blossom park with more than 250 varieties of sakura—an experience entirely different from the more familiar cherry-viewing destinations of Tokyo and Kyoto.