Kiyama Shrine

Kiyama Shrine

Kiyama Shrine (木山神社) in Kiyama, Maniwa City, Okayama Prefecture, has a worship hall and corridor of 1919 designed by Egawa Saburohachi and the worship hall and main hall of Zenkaku Inari Shrine in its precinct, all four registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 27, 2017 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). It is owned by Kiyama Shrine.

According to the Okayama Prefecture Association of Shinto Shrines, the shrine is said to date from 816 and enshrines Susanoo; the mountaintop shrine remains as the inner shrine, and the lower shrine was built at the foot of the mountain in 1962. All four buildings were put up on the inner-shrine site and moved down that year (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Four Buildings

The worship hall has a hip-and-gable copper roof on trusses and a three-bay cusped-gable porch. The corridor links it to the shrine office, its floor rising in a gentle curve under curved, carved beams. Zenkaku Inari Shrine stands to the right of the main worship hall: its worship hall is entered from the gable end and has Western-style foundation stones at the front, and its main hall has double walls with round posts outside and square ones within (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Grouped rafters and other features typical of Egawa run through all four. Each is described on its own page.

Visiting

It is owned by Kiyama Shrine (Agency for Cultural Affairs). No official information on visiting hours was found.