A Bell Tower on a Castle Hill in Niō
A flight of worn stone steps climbs from the streets of Niō, an old port town on the western shore of Kagawa Prefecture, to a hilltop where the temple of Kakujōin looks out over the Seto Inland Sea. At the top of the climb, set across an open court from the main hall, stands a two-storied bell tower with a broad, outward-flaring base. This is the Kakujōin Shōrō, the temple's bell tower. Its architecture places it in the Momoyama period, the brief age between roughly 1573 and 1614, and it has held national protection as an Important Cultural Property since 1947.
The hill itself has a longer story than the tower. Before the temple moved here, this was the ground of Niō Castle, a fortress held by the local lord Hosokawa Yorihiro. In 1579 the warlord Chōsokabe Motochika swept through the area and the castle fell. A small stone marker near the foot of the steps is now almost the only sign that a castle ever stood on the rise.
Kakujōin traces its own founding to the year 819, by tradition the work of the monk Kūkai, better known in Japan as Kōbō Daishi. It was first called Bodaishin-in and stood at the foot of nearby Mount Shippō. The temple was rebuilt during the Ōei era (1394–1427) by the priest Zōun, and rebuilt again after the fighting of 1579. Only in the early eighteenth century, during the Hōei era (1704–1710), did the priest Santō relocate the temple to the abandoned castle hill and give it the name it carries today.
Reading the Architecture
The form of the bell tower is worth slowing down for. Its lower story is wrapped in a flared, plaster-finished skirt that widens steadily toward the ground. Japanese builders call this a hakamagoshi, after the hakama, the pleated divided skirt of formal dress, and the name fits: the base spreads out exactly as the lower hem of a hakama does. The skirt is more than decoration. It shelters the timber frame inside and gives the whole structure a stable, planted look against wind coming off the sea.
Above the skirt the building opens up. The upper story carries the bronze bell and is left open on its sides so the sound can travel, framed by a railed gallery. In plan the tower measures three bays across the front and two bays deep, the bay being a traditional unit set by the spacing of the posts rather than a fixed length. The roof is an irimoya form, a hip-and-gable shape that drops in clean planes at the lower edges and rises to gabled ends near the ridge. It is finished in hongawara-buki, the formal tiling that alternates wide concave pan tiles with rounded cover tiles, the same roofing used on the most important temple halls.
Taken together, these features read as restrained Momoyama work. The period is remembered for the flamboyant carving and gilding of its great castles and gateways, but a provincial bell tower like this one shows the quieter side of the same age: good proportion, honest joinery, and ornament kept in check.
Why It Is Protected
The bell tower was designated on 26 February 1947. That date sits before the Cultural Properties Protection Law of 1950, the framework Japan uses today, so the tower was first listed under the older National Treasures Preservation Law of 1929. When the present law took effect, structures designated under the prewar system were carried over as Important Cultural Properties, which is the status the tower holds now.
What earns a building this rank is usually a combination of age, intactness, and rarity. Bell towers of the hakamagoshi type survive across Japan, but well-preserved examples that can be dated to the Momoyama period are far less common, and complete towers of any age from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are scarce. The Kakujōin tower keeps its original form clearly enough to be read as a document of how such structures were built in that age.
One caution is honest to make. The construction date given in the national record is a range, 1573 to 1614, rather than a single documented year. It is a judgment based on the building's style and details, not a date written on a beam. The temple did not move to this hill until the early 1700s, so the tower is older than the present temple's tenure on the site. How those two facts fit together has not been fully resolved in the public record, and the safest statement is the one the registry makes: the tower is, by its architecture, a Momoyama building.
Visiting Kakujōin
The bell tower stands in the open, facing the main hall across the hilltop court, and visitors can walk right up to it. A stone pillar in front carries the inscription marking its national designation. The tower is still in use: each New Year's Eve its bell is struck for joya no kane, the 108 strokes that see out the old year. Outside that night, anyone who climbs the steps can reach the bell, and the temple lets visitors sound it after paying their respects. The note carries a long way over the rooftops of Niō below.
The same hilltop gives one of the better views in the town, north and west over the harbour and out to the Inland Sea. In spring the grounds are known locally for azaleas in bloom and for a small temple market. Kakujōin is the nineteenth stop on the Sanuki Thirty-Three Kannon pilgrimage, and its principal image, a standing Thousand-Armed Kannon, is itself a Kagawa prefectural cultural property, kept inside the main hall.
Niō rewards a slow walk. The lanes below the temple keep many older houses and shops, a reminder that this was once a busy harbour. A short distance up the coast lies Chichibugahama, a wide tidal flat famous for the mirror of shallow water it holds at low tide near sunset, which has made it one of the most photographed spots in the prefecture. The two pair easily in a single afternoon.
By car, the hill is about twenty minutes from the Mitoyo-Tosaka interchange and roughly two minutes from the Niō branch office of the city. The nearest railway station is Takuma on the JR Yosan Line, about fifteen minutes away by bus or a little over two kilometres on foot. A small lot for a few cars sits beside the prefectural road near the foot of the steps.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Kagawa
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Kakujoin Temple Bell Tower
- [ Naoshima Art Island & Kotohiragu Shrine Visit ]
Q&A
- Can visitors ring the bell?
- Yes. The tower stands in the open part of the grounds and the temple allows visitors to sound the bell after offering their respects. On New Year's Eve the same bell is rung for the traditional 108 strokes of joya no kane.
- What does the flared base mean?
- It is called a hakamagoshi, a skirt that widens toward the ground like the lower part of a hakama, the pleated trousers of formal Japanese dress. It encloses and protects the timber frame of the lower story, while the bell hangs in the open upper story above.
- Exactly how old is the tower?
- The national record dates it to the Momoyama period, given as 1573 to 1614. That is an estimate based on its architectural style rather than a documented year, so it is best understood as a late-sixteenth to early-seventeenth-century building.
- Is there an admission fee or set opening time?
- The bell tower sits outdoors in the temple grounds, which can be entered freely during daylight, and there is no charge to walk up to it. For prayers, goshuin seals, or anything inside the main hall, it is best to contact the temple directly.
- What else is worth seeing nearby?
- The old streets of Niō below the temple, and Chichibugahama up the coast, a tidal flat known for its mirror-like reflections at sunset. The temple itself is the nineteenth site of the Sanuki Thirty-Three Kannon pilgrimage.
Basic Information
| Name | Kakujōin Shōrō (Bell Tower of Kakujōin) |
|---|---|
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (designated 26 February 1947) |
| Category | Pre-modern / temple architecture |
| Period | Momoyama period (1573–1614) |
| Structure | Three bays by two bays; flared skirt base (hakamagoshi); hip-and-gable roof (irimoya); formal tile roofing (hongawara-buki) |
| Count | 1 structure |
| Owner | Fudō Gokoku-ji (Kakujōin), Shingon sect, Omuro branch |
| Location | Niō, Niō-chō, Mitoyo City, Kagawa Prefecture |
| Access | About 15 min by bus or 2.1 km on foot from Takuma Station (JR Yosan Line); about 20 min by car from Mitoyo-Tosaka IC |
| Public access | Temple grounds open during daylight; bell tower freely approachable outdoors |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/102/3306
- Cultural Heritage Online (National Institutes for Cultural Heritage)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/191143
- Kakujōin (Sanuki Thirty-Three Kannon, Site 19) — Mitoyo City
- https://www.city.mitoyo.lg.jp/kakuka/seisaku/sangyo/14_1/2/2490.html
- Kakujōin — Mitoyo City Board of Education
- https://www.city.mitoyo.lg.jp/kakuka/kyouikuiinkai/shogai/3_1/5/762.html
- Kakujōin official website
- https://kakujouin.jp/
Last verified: 2026.06.03