Chichibu-sugi (秩父杉), the Cedar of Takachiho Shrine
This cedar is named after a town in the hills north-west of Tokyo. Chichibu was the home of Hatakeyama Shigetada, a warrior of the Kamakura age, and the second sign at the tree's foot says he planted it about 800 years ago, sent to Takachiho as the envoy of Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun. That is the shrine's account: a planting legend from around 1190, not a ring count, and the 800 years is held to be that legend's age rather than a measurement. The height is measured. The Environment Agency's giant-tree survey put it at 55 metres, one straight trunk rising clean through the canopy beside the Kagura-den, and the sign repeats the figure. The girth depends on who held the tape. The sign, from Miyazaki prefecture's hundred-giant-trees list, certified in 1992, says 7.15 metres; the older national survey recorded 9 metres, and one giant-tree database sides with the sign and remarks that it is not that thick. The town made it a natural monument in 1969. If the shrine's count is right, it went in when the first shogunate was being built and has stood through every century of samurai rule since. Its foot is fenced, so you look up from a few metres off. The Meoto-sugi, the shrine's wedded pair of cedars, stand about 35 metres away.
高千穂神社, 宮崎県西臼杵郡高千穂町三田井1037 (Takachiho Shrine, Takachiho) You can recognise it by the single straight trunk, 55 metres tall and 7.15 metres round, fenced at its foot with two wooden signs and a white post reading 秩父杉. It stands right of the path near the Kagura-den.
Free, inside the Takachiho Shrine precinct, open to walk up to; fenced at the foot, so viewed from a few metres away. Nothing booked or paid for the tree.
Takachiho is reached by bus only (no railway): Takachiho Bus Centre (Nobeoka or Kumamoto buses) to the shrine is about 15 minutes' walk, or a few minutes by taxi.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
