Ushitora Shrine — 艮神社

On the hillside of Nagae in Onomichi, Hiroshima, stands Ushitora Shrine — said to be the oldest shrine in the old city of Onomichi, its grounds shaded by a grove of giant camphor trees nine centuries old.

The shrine was founded in 806 and is held to be the oldest in old Onomichi. Rooted in the local ubusuna faith of the birthplace guardian, it is documented as already existing by 1475, according to the Onomichi Shikō compiled in 1816, and its antiquity is confirmed in the old shrine-and-temple registries.

The shrine enshrines four deities: the creator god Izanagi, the sun goddess Amaterasu, the storm god Susanoo, and Kibitsuhiko, the hero-deity of the surrounding Kibi region.

The shrine’s most celebrated feature is its grove of camphor trees. Four great camphors stand within the precinct — designated a Natural Monument of Hiroshima Prefecture in 1988 — estimated at some nine hundred years old, with trunks reaching seven metres across. The largest, near the entrance before the worship hall, divides into three about three metres from the ground, its bark thick with moss.