Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall

A Five-Bay Worship Hall with a Dormer Gable

Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall (伴林氏神社拝殿及び幣殿, Tomobayashi-no-uji-no-jinja Haiden oyobi Heiden) is the 1941 worship hall and offering hall standing south of the main sanctuary at Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine in Hayashi 3-chome, Fujiidera City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on June 29, 2022. A single-story timber structure with a copper-sheet roof and a building area of 219 square meters, it is the largest of the shrine's five registered buildings.

The worship hall is built in the Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable form, entered on its long side, five bays across and four deep. A porch, the Kōhai, covers the central three bays, and a triangular Chidori-hafu gable sits on the main roof above it. Porch roof, gable and main roof step up one behind another, which gives the front real depth.

Behind the worship hall the offering hall runs north to meet the steps of the main hall. Corridors branch off to either side, leading east to a room for ritual implements and west to a room where food offerings are prepared, so the whole ceremonial sequence sits under connected roofs.

Why It Was Registered, and What It Is Made Of

Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall carries registration number 27-0860 and was listed as a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the unpainted Taiwanese cypress, the coffered ceiling (Gō-tenjō) and the broad floor paved with granite, and calls the result a commanding piece of modern shrine building.

That stone floor matters. Instead of a raised timber floor, the hall has a paved earthen floor, so large numbers of worshippers can come in without removing their shoes. It fits a shrine enlarged in wartime to receive big gatherings.

The building was refurbished in 1983. Osaka Bunkazai Navi notes that the original cypress-bark roof was replaced with copper, and that the cedar boards set into the coffered ceiling are later replacements; the cypress posts and beams are original.

What to Look For at the Worship Hall and Offering Hall

Stand in front and look up at the roofs. The porch eaves, the chidori gable and the big hip-and-gable roof rise in three distinct layers.

Then walk around to the east or west side. From there you can see how Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall extends back into the offering hall and how the side corridors reach out to the two service rooms. From the front it looks like one hall; from the side it reads as a compound building.

When the doors are open, the granite floor and the grid of the coffered ceiling are visible from the front. The pale unpainted posts against the grey stone are what give the interior its character.

Visiting the Worship Hall and Offering Hall

Visitors pray at the front of Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine Worship Hall and Offering Hall. Osaka Bunkazai Navi lists the interior as closed to the public, so a visit centers on the exterior.

The shrine offers prayer services; ask at the shrine office if you would like one. No photography rules are published, but the hall is where ceremonies and prayers take place, so keep cameras down while they are under way. Directions and hours are on the Tomobayashi no Uji Shrine page.