Imamiya Shrine Wakamiya Shrine Hall

A Small Hall in Front of the Wakamiya Sanctuary

Directly in front of the Wakamiya-sha Honden, on a north-south ridge, stands its worship hall. Like the sanctuary it faces, it was built in 1694, during the Genroku-era restoration, and the two form a matched pair within the sub-precinct.

It is a small building, one bay square, with a hip-and-gable roof of copper sheet and a cut-plank veranda, the kirimeen, running around it.

The Dance-Hall Form

The hall is carried on four pillars tied by penetrating horizontal beams called nageshi. Boat-shaped brackets sit on the pillar tops, a coffered ceiling is stretched overhead, and the eaves are single-tier with widely spaced rafters over a base layer. The gable is finished with an openwork lattice, the kiko-gōshi.

This is the maidono, or dance-hall, form: an open worship hall of the kind used before the main sanctuary of the parent shrine. Its plainness is the point. It preserves, at small scale, the appearance of a worship space from the Genroku rebuilding.

Registration

The Wakamiya-sha Haiden was registered in March 2018 under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. Standing between the Honden behind it and the gate and openwork fence around them, it is one piece of a small, coherently preserved Genroku sub-precinct.