Banna-ji Temple

Locally knownKnown to people who live here. Not in the international guidebooks.

Researched and written by Hinato

Banna-jiNational TreasureAshikaga clanmoated templeginkgo

Photo: Yoshio Kohara / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) · original

Step through the gate at Banna-ji Temple and the first thing you notice isn't the architecture — it's the quiet.

Banna-ji was built in 1196 by Ashikaga Yoshikane as the clan temple of the family that would go on to hold the shogunate for two centuries, and it sits inside the moat and earthen rampart of the family's residence — which means the site is simultaneously a temple and a medieval fortified manor, one of the few surviving examples of the form in eastern Japan.

The main hall is a National Treasure, a large Kamakura-period structure in the Zen style housing a Dainichi Nyorai, and the bell tower and sutra repository are Important Cultural Properties. There is a 550-year-old ginkgo in the middle of the compound that turns spectacularly in late November. Entry is free, the grounds are open to the street and locals cut through them, and it is a ten-minute walk from the station next door to the oldest school in Japan. For a National Treasure this accessible, the visitor numbers are remarkably low.

Plan your visit

Time to allow

45–60 minutes

Hours

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Closed: Open year-round

Admission

Free

Best season

Late November for the ginkgo | April for blossom

Getting there

Access notes

Ietomi-cho, Ashikaga. About a short walk from JR Ashikaga Station or Tobu Ashikaga-shi Station, or by car from Ashikaga IC on the Kita-Kanto Expressway.

What locals know

**Look at the moat before the buildings.** The rectangular water moat and earth bank around the compound are the residence, not the temple — the layout is a fortified medieval manor with a temple placed inside it, and reading it that way explains the whole site. **The ginkgo is late November.** The tree in the centre of the grounds is around 550 years old and turns considerably later than the maples. It is the best two weeks of the year here and is also when the compound is busiest, which still means a handful of people. **Free, and next door to a paid site.** Ashikaga Gakko is immediately adjacent and charges ¥480. Doing Banna-ji first costs nothing and sets up the history of the family that founded both. **Grounds close at four.** The buildings are viewable from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Outside those hours the compound can still be walked through, but you will not see inside the halls. **Add Orihime Shrine.** The vermilion shrine on the hillside above the town, dedicated to the deities of weaving, is a fifteen-minute walk away and gives a view back over Ashikaga and the Watarase River.

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