Toyokashima Shrine

photo by 石井裕光 · CC BY-SA 4.0

A shrine from 1466: the oldest wooden building still standing in Tokyo.

The neighbourhood shrine keeps the honden, the inner shrine where the deity resides, built in 1466: it is the oldest building among the Shinto shrines still in existence in Tokyo. The confirmation came from a votive tablet (棟札) found during a restoration in 1992–95; before that it was thought to be more recent. The honden stands inside a covering structure and cannot be seen from outside: what strikes visitors is not its architecture but the fact itself.

Tradition gives the Imokubo shrine a founding date of 707, but both the municipality of Higashiyamato and Wikipedia state that this date cannot be verified and point to a later origin. The verified fact is a different one: the honden, from 1466 (Muromachi period), is the oldest shrine building still standing in Tokyo, confirmed by three independent sources, including the municipality's official page.

ℹ️ Public grounds, with no ticket and no stated closing time. The 1466 honden is protected by a covering structure (覆殿) and cannot be seen from outside.

🚉 Kamikitadai · 18 min walk

Sources: city.higashiyamato.lg.jp

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