Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine Lattice Wall

A 26-Meter Lattice Wall Around the Main Hall

Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine Lattice Wall (石切劔箭神社透塀, sukibei) is an openwork timber fence of around 1931 at Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine in Higashiishikiri-cho, Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, running from behind the worship hall around both sides of the main hall, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 13, 2025.

A Sukibei is a fence built so that you can see through it, and shrines often place one around the main hall. This one is timber with a copper roof and runs 26 meters in all. The national database dates it to about 1931, and the shrine's ridge tablets credit it, with the main hall and the worship and offering halls, to the designer Yoshida Tanejiro.

A Fence That Stops at the Platform

Most openwork fences wrap a building on three sides, the shrine explains, but the Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine Lattice Wall does something different. It starts from the eaves of the worship hall, runs back, turns at a right angle to close in each side of the main hall, and stops against the stone platform in line with the main hall's rear posts. It never passes behind the hall.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the same extent, from the back of the worship hall to the line of the main hall's rear posts. In plan, the fence clasps the main hall's platform from left and right.

Framed doors are fitted in the bays on the main hall side.

Why the Lattice Wall Was Registered, and What to Look For

It is registration number 27-0944, and of the four buildings registered at the shrine that day, it is the only one listed under a different criterion: its contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

The agency's description goes into construction. The fence stands on a cut-stone base, with square posts at the corners and round posts between. Three horizontal Nageshi rails run along it, at the foot, at waist height and at the head of the openings. Below the waist rail it is closed with vertical Tateita-bari boards, and above, it opens into Renji-mado slatted windows.

What the description singles out is the eaves. The brackets and rafters carrying the little roof have their ends cut into moldings, which crowds the underside of the eaves with shadowed detail. The roof edge is finished with a decorative board that hides the ends of the eave beams.

Stand at a corner to see it best. The switch from square to round posts, and the three level lines of the rails, are clearest there.

Visiting the Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine Lattice Wall

You can walk along the outside of the Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine Lattice Wall freely. The inside belongs to the main hall and is off limits. That you glimpse the main hall between the slats is exactly the point of a fence like this.

The space in front of the sacred camphor tree, to the left of the main hall, is the best place to see the fence close up from the side. Many people stop there to pray to the tree, so do not linger too long.

Personal and scenery photos are fine, but tripods, stepladders and drones are not. Directions and hours are on the Ishikiri Tsurugiya Shrine page.