The Shrine of the Edo Clan

Inside the Kanda Myojin complex there are several small shrines, real architectonic jewels, from which I already presented the Suehiro Inari Shrine.
This time I would like to show you the Edo Jinja, a shrine dedicated to the Edo clan.
Originating from Chichibu, Musashi Province (now the Saitama Prefecture), the people from the Edo clan settled on the grounds of today's Tokyo Imperial Palace, where they built, at the end of the 12th century, the first fortifications.
In 1457, Edo Shigeyasu surrendered the fortifications to Ōta Dōkan, who then built the Edo castle. Soon, the area around the castle (known as Yamanote) grew to become a big city and since then, never stopped growing: Edo 「江戸」, today's Tokyo.

Ōta Dōkan is a well known figure from the history of Japan, but I especially like the fact that this small shrine preserves an even older story, a lesser known page of Japanese history - the very beginning of Tokyo.