At less than a kilometer from the Kamakura Station you can find the Yakumo Shrine, established in 1082 by Yoshimitsu Minamoto, the grand-grand-grandfather of the Kamakura Shogunate founder, Yoritomo Minamoto (1147-1199).
This is one of the oldest shrines in Kamakura, older than the famous Tsurugaoka Hachimangu.
Second Torii, Yakumo Shrine, Kamakura
This shrine has an interesting story, its founding is related to an event that took place 200 years before, in Kyoto.
Yakumo Shrine building, Kamakura
In the year 869 in Kyoto, an epidemic that was ravaging the city was stopped after a mikoshi parade at the Yasaka Shrine (well known today as Gion Shrine). That parade marked the beginning of the festival Gion Matsuri, a famous annual festival taking place in July in Kyoto.
First Torii, Yakumo Shrine, Kamakura
200 years later, an epidemic hit hard Kamakura and Yoshimitsu Minamoto thought that building in Kamakura a branch of the Yasaka Shrine would help protecting the people against evils and epidemics.
He requested permission from Kyoto to raise in Kamakura a sub-shrine named Kamakura Gion-sha (today’s Yakumo Shrine). Soon after the shrine was erected, the epidemic decreased rapidly.
Yakumo Shrine building, Kamakura
The building we see today was reconstructed in 1929, after the Great Kanto Earthquake.
Shimenawa, Yakumo Shrine, Kamakura
