Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall

What the Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall in Niigata City is

The Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall (稲荷神社拝殿及び幣殿, Inari Jinja Haiden oyobi Heiden) is a worship hall and connecting offering hall built around 1815 in Kuzutsuka, Kita Ward, Niigata City, repaired in 2001, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 2008.

It stands directly in front of the main hall of Inari Shrine (Niigata City). The worship hall (haiden), where visitors stop to pray, and the offering hall (heiden), which links it to the sanctuary behind, are registered together as one building. It is a single-storey timber structure with a tiled roof, covering 49 square meters.

The worship hall is three bays wide and two deep, roofed in the hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri form with interlocking pantiles. A triangular Chidori-hafu gable sits on the front slope, and below it a one-bay porch projects toward the approach. The offering hall runs from the central bay at the back of the worship hall to the front of the main hall. It is three bays long and one bay wide, with a simple two-sided roof of the kind called ryosage-zukuri.

Why the Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall was registered

The Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall was registered in the 60th round as number 15-0300, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that these halls were raised at the same time as the main hall, so the sanctuary, offering hall and worship hall were laid out as a single set in the building campaign of 1815. The Kita Ward Local History Museum adds that although part of the shrine was renovated in 2001, the buildings keep the style of their original construction.

The interiors hold something worth knowing about. Both halls have coffered ceilings (Gō-tenjō), and each panel of the grid is painted with flowers, birds and similar motifs.

What to look for at the Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall

Seen from the front, the roofs stack up in layers. The big hip-and-gable roof carries the triangular chidori-hafu on its face, and in front of that the porch roof juts out, so three planes step toward you one after another. Placing a chidori-hafu above the porch is a common way to give a worship hall a stronger front.

When you pray, glance upward. According to the museum's signboard, a plaque on the shrine building reads "Inari Daimyojin," and the calligraphy is by Nakayama Tadayasu, maternal grandfather of Emperor Meiji.

Walk along the side of the worship hall and you can see the offering hall leaving the middle of its back wall and running to the main hall. Its two-sided roof is plainer than either neighbor, bridging the hip-and-gable worship hall and the gabled sanctuary.

Visiting the Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall

The Inari Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall faces the approach head on. You can pray in front of the worship hall, and the exterior can be viewed from the grounds at any time. The painted coffered ceilings are inside, and we found no notice of the interior being opened to the public.

We also found no posted rules on photography. During the festival, and especially for the kagura dances on September 7 and 8, the area in front of the worship hall gets crowded, so pick another day if you want to study the building. Directions and full festival dates are on the Inari Shrine (Niigata City) page.