Ube Shrine Worship Hall

What Is the Ube Shrine Worship Hall?

The Ube Shrine Worship Hall (宇倍神社拝殿, Ube Jinja Haiden) is the hall where worshippers stand before the deity at Ube Shrine in Kokufu-cho Miyanoshita, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture; the Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to 1884, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024. Its registration number is 31-0284, and it was registered as a model of architectural form.

The Ube Shrine Worship Hall stands east of the main hall, in line with it and joined to it by an offering hall. It is a single-storey timber building with a Hiwadabuki cypress-bark roof and a building area of 35 square meters, and it was altered in 1999. Prayer ceremonies and weddings take place here.

A Gable Turned to Face the Approach

The roof is Irimoya-zukuri, a hip-and-gable form, and the building is entered at the gable end (Tsumairi). The triangular face of the roof therefore looks down the approach, and the first thing you see after passing through the gate is the Kitsure-goshi lattice filling that gable. The main hall behind it does the opposite, turning its long side to the front.

A flight of wooden steps rises at the front, and a veranda with a Kōran railing circles the building. The brackets are plain Funahijiki and the eaves have two tiers of closely spaced rafters, the same vocabulary used on the main hall. The two buildings share their details and differ in which way the roof faces.

About the only ornament is the decorative metalwork fixed to the bargeboards and a few other places. The agency calls the Ube Shrine Worship Hall a hall of neat, restrained design with little decoration beyond those fittings.

One Room Under a Coffered Ceiling

Inside, the Ube Shrine Worship Hall is a single undivided room. The floor is of polished wooden boards and the ceiling is a Gō-tenjō coffered grid. The agency's database includes a photograph of the interior taken from the front.

Both surfaces are finished to show the material itself. If you enter for a ceremony, look up at the grid of the ceiling and down at the long run of the boards.

Two Records of When It Was Built

Sources do not agree on the date of the Ube Shrine Worship Hall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives 1884. The shrine's grounds guide says instead that in 1898, the year the main hall was rebuilt, the worship hall was also rebuilt as a hip-and-gable, gable-entry building three bays square, with a one-bay canopy roof added at the front.

The question touches the hall's place on Japan's banknotes. The Tottori Prefectural Tourism Federation says the 1899 five-yen note shows the worship hall, and the shrine says the hall on that note is the one of the 1898 rebuilding. This article follows the agency's database, the source for the registration, and gives the date as 1884, with the shrine's account noted alongside.

Seeing the Ube Shrine Worship Hall

The exterior of the Ube Shrine Worship Hall can be seen at any time, straight ahead once you pass through the gate. Stand just inside the gate and look up to take in the lattice gable and the metal-fitted bargeboards. Walk round to either side to see the veranda and railing running all the way around, and the link to the offering hall behind.

You can only go inside when attending a prayer ceremony or a wedding. The shrine does not allow photos or video during ceremonies, so keep your camera down while a rite is in progress. Directions to the shrine are on the Ube Shrine page.