Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate

What the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate is

The Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate (立川稲荷神社中門, Tachikawa Inari Jinja Chūmon) is a gateway built in 1921 at Tachikawa Inari Shrine in Tachikawa-chō, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 19, 2014.

It stands on the stone steps between the offering hall, which projects from the back of the worship hall, and the main hall at the top of the precinct. In other words, it marks the line between the space where worshippers pray and the sanctuary where the deity resides. It went up in the same year as the main hall and was repaired alongside it in 1933 and 2013.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate as a timber structure with a sheet-metal roof and a frontage of 2.4 meters. It is a single bay square, one span across the front and one along each side.

Why the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate was registered

The gate was registered in the 79th round as number 31-0194. The main hall and the worship hall were registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the nation; the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate was registered under a different criterion, as a structure that has become a model of design.

The reason appears in the last line of the Agency's description, which says the gate shows the characteristics of the shrine middle gates built in many parts of Japan in the modern era. It was chosen as a textbook example of a type built widely in that period.

Taken piece by piece, those characteristics are clear. The roof is a simple gable (Kirizuma-zukuri) with its gable end facing forward (Tsumairi), and it carries a gentle upward swell (mukuri) instead of a straight slope. Round posts stand on base blocks, boat-shaped bracket blocks (Funahijiki) are set into their tops to carry the beams, and the gable is filled with an Inoko-sasu strut. The front opening holds paneled Sankarado doors whose upper halves are vertical lattice.

Looking at the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate

Begin with the roofline. Seen from the side, the gable does not run straight from ridge to eave but bows gently upward in the middle. On a gate only 2.4 meters wide, that soft curve does a lot to make the small roof feel generous.

Then look at the posts. Each round post rises from its base block, and the funahijiki at the top take the beam directly, with no stacked bracketing in between. The main hall of the same year uses the same detail, and both buildings share inoko-sasu gables, so the gate and the sanctuary behind it clearly draw on the same vocabulary.

Finally, the doors. Only the upper half of each sankarado is latticed, which keeps the doors from looking heavy. Tottori Prefecture's guide includes a photograph of the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate taken from the south with its doors closed.

Visiting the Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate

Tottori Prefecture states that the exteriors of the three registered buildings at the shrine may be viewed freely and that the interiors are not open to the public. The Tachikawa Inari Shrine Middle Gate stands on the steps between the offering hall and the main hall, and what lies beyond its doors belongs to the sanctuary. Official sources do not say whether visitors may pass through the gate or how close they may approach.

No photography rules are published either. Treat the area beyond the gate as sacred ground: do not press close when the doors are shut, and avoid photographing during ceremonies. Directions and general visiting information are on the Tachikawa Inari Shrine page.