Minobu · JP

Ichinomiya

Tucked into the old post-town of Shimoyama along the Fuji River, Ichinomiya Kamo Shrine (一宮賀茂神社) carries a name that tells you its standing at once: ichinomiya means "the first-ranked shrine," and here it was honored as the head of the seventeen shrines of the Kawachi domain. Founded in the Nara period around 750 by a branch of Kyoto's Kamigamo Shrine, it blends imperial and Kamo lineage in a quiet grove of cedars, oaks and sakaki a short drive from the great temple town of Minobu. The shrine's story is bound up with the warlords who ruled this river country. The Takeda and Anayama clans revered it lavishly—the Takeda granting it a holding worth 3,500 mon and the Tokugawa later confirming its estate by vermilion-seal charter—while its hall of 1621, built by the celebrated Shimoyama carpenters, is now a town-designated cultural property. It is a small place with a deep pedigree, and it is open to all without charge.