Orihime Shrine

The Vermilion Shrine of the Ashikaga Weavers

The Orihime Shrine (織姫神社, Orihime Jinja) stands halfway up Mount Orihime (Ryogaisan) in Nishimiyacho, Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture, where its main buildings, kagura hall, office and purification pavilion, completed in 1937, were registered in 2004 as four Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

Ashikaga City names the main deities as Amenoyachichihime and Amenomihoko, and notes that the shrine now draws many worshippers for prosperity in industry and for matchmaking. It belongs to the religious corporation Orihime Shrine.

The Ashikaga tourism association says the shrine honours the guardian deity of Ashikaga, a weaving town with 1,300 years of history, and is sung of in a local folk song as the red shrine. The city calls it essential to the story of the town's modernisation, having supported its textile industry through faith.

History

According to the tourism association, the shrine was built in 1879 but burned down the following year, 1880.

Rebuilding began in 1934, and after three years the present shrine was completed in 1937 in reinforced concrete, unusual at the time.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs names the architect of all four buildings as Kobayashi Fukutaro, whom Ashikaga City also credits with the main hall of Chorinji temple.

Layout of the Precinct

The Agency describes a stone-walled terrace built halfway up the southern slope of Ryogaisan for the main buildings. West of the great stairway up to the terrace stands the kagura hall, with the shrine office to its south, linked by a corridor. The kagura hall and office form the heart of the level ground below the terrace.

The purification pavilion stands partway up the stone steps of the main approach, on ground a level below the kagura hall and office. Climbing the approach, visitors pass the pavilion, then the kagura hall and office, the great stairway and finally the main buildings.

The Agency treats the four buildings as one precinct plan by Kobayashi Fukutaro. The tourism association notes a view over the Kanto Plain and that the shrine is the starting point of a prefectural nature hiking course.

Getting There and Visiting

The tourism association gives about 10 minutes by car or 25 minutes on foot from JR Ashikaga Station, about 12 minutes by car or 25 minutes on foot from Tobu Ashikagashi Station, and about 15 minutes by car from the Ashikaga interchange of the Kita-Kanto Expressway. There is parking.

Goshuin stamps are given at the shrine office from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Enquiries: Ashikaga Orihime Shrine support association, 0284-22-0313.