Located in Kawagoe in Saitama, Prefecture is a bell tower known as Toki no Kane (Time Bell Tower).
It is said that Toki no Kane was built around the era when Sakai Tadakatsu was the feudal lord of Kawagoe Castle (1627-1634).
It was burned down numerous times and the current Time Bell Tower, which is 16 meters in height, was rebuilt in the following year of the Kawagoe Great Fire in 1893. And many have looked to this tower to tell the time for 350 years and thus, the Toki no Kane is a major symbol for the city of Kawagoe.
But the bell brought to Kawagoe was cast in July 1694 by the founder of Tanimura Castle. And the bell can be heard ringing at 6:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.
In 1996, the tower was recognized as one of the “100 Sound Sceneries of Japan” that should be preserved forever by the Ministry of the Environment.
The Toki no Kane leads to the Yakushi Shrine (Yakushi Jinja) was was previously known as Zuikousan Iou-in Jourenji Temple. The temple became known as Yakushi Jinja during the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
The current bell tower is the 4th generation and was rebuilt by the design of Sekine Matsugoro after the Kawagoe Daisen (a great fire) in 1893.
The fire was thought to have been started in front of the Yojuin Gate in the old castle and spread to 17 towns in total (a total of 1,302 houses were burned down, no deaths or injuries reported) but 1,014 people were displaced.
The fire was eventually extinguished at 8:00 p.m. the following day and is thought to have been started by ash that was not extinguished at the Yojuin Monzen Tsuboya Workplace.
The bell tower went through considerable restoration in 2015-2017 in order to make it earthquake resistant.
In 20015, a seismic study felt the tower would collapse if there was a major earthquake, so 60 tons of concrete were poured into the base and construction was completed in December 9, 2017.
