Nagaya-jinja, Shinto shrine in Japan

Nagaya-jinja is a small Shinto shrine in Motosu featuring a simple wooden structure with a traditional red torii gate at its entrance. The grounds are well-kept and surrounded by trees, creating a natural space for quiet reflection.

Founded in the Eishō era, the shrine was moved to its present site in 1532 by Nagaya Kageoki, lord of Aiba Castle, as its guardian shrine. After the castle fell to Saitō Dōsan in 1545, villagers managed it from 1547. The hall burned in 1688 and was rebuilt in 1691; it was renamed Nagaya Gozu Tennō in 1868 and returned to Nagaya-jinja in 1869.

The annual festival on 1 and 2 August, the Reitaisai, is known as the Uma-kake Matsuri and is said to date from the shrine's founding. It is a Gifu Prefecture Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, with chigo dances, pulled floats, and a final rite in which a rider in layered haori and hakama gallops around the precinct opening a flower parasol and fan, shedding the layers as he goes.

The shrine stands in the Nagaya district of Motosu, about a 30-minute walk from either Tarumi Railway's Itonuki Station or Motosu Station. The annual festival on 1 and 2 August draws crowds for the horse-riding ritual, so plan around those dates if you want to avoid them.

The shrine was renamed Nagaya Gozu Tenno in 1868 and returned to Nagaya-jinja in 1869, a Meiji-era reversal of its Buddhist-Shinto identity. Its main hall, rebuilt in 1691 after a 1688 fire, is a prefectural Important Cultural Property along with its ridge plaques and old documents.