Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse

What the Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse Is

The Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse (感田神社神輿蔵, Kanda Jinja Mikoshigura) is a storehouse for the shrine's portable shrine, built in the mid-Meiji era at Kanda Shrine in Naka, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 October 2008. It stands just south of the Ichinosha hall, facing east.

It is a single-storey Dozo-zukuri building, the fire-resistant clay-walled construction used for Japanese storehouses, measuring 4.9 by 4.2 metres, a building area of 21 square metres. The gabled roof of round-and-flat tiles has its entrance on the gable end, and the walls are boarded at the base and finished above in white lime plaster.

A Room Shaped Around the Mikoshi

Inside, the Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse is a single room. The centre is left as a beaten-earth floor, where the mikoshi stands, and low board floors run along the sides and back.

A mikoshi is carried on long poles and has to be moved out level. Leaving the middle at ground level and raising only the edges reads as a plan that keeps a clear path for the mikoshi while giving the other festival gear somewhere to sit.

At Kanda Shrine's main festival, the mikoshi is carried through the town on the Sunday in July. This storehouse is where it spends the rest of the year.

Why It Was Registered and What to Look For

The Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits the cusped gable on its front with giving the building a striking design.

From the front you see a karahafu, a gable that bows up in the middle and sweeps down at the ends, projecting below the white plaster of the gable wall and roofed in copper sheet. That curve is normally used on the fronts of shrine halls and gates. Here it lends a plain storehouse the dignity of a shrine building.

White plaster, a boarded base, round tiles and a copper curve: four materials meet on this one façade. Because it faces east, morning is the best time to see it, when low light picks out the curve of the gable.

Visiting the Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse

The Kanda Shrine Mikoshi Storehouse is a working store and is not open inside. The exterior can be viewed freely from the grounds (checked 26 September 2026).

The mikoshi comes out on the main festival day, but the shrine gives no notice about whether the storehouse can be seen open then. No photography rules are published. Festival dates and directions are on the Kanda Shrine page.