The highest point of the Aranyik ridge, carrying a chedi whose base is ringed by 68 half-elephants and whose drum once held 44 stucco panels of the Buddha's life.
วัดช้างรอบ · Wat Chang Rop
By the BAANLYY Editorial Team · Last checked 1 November 2026
| Official name | วัดช้างรอบ — Wat Chang Rop |
|---|---|
| Where | Nong Pling, Mueang Kamphaeng Phet, Kamphaeng Phet |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 52, part 75, 8 March B.E. 2478 — the first national list of ancient monuments, in which the Fine Arts Department's own history names this monastery as one of eight in Kamphaeng Phet; boundaries subsequently determined by Royal Gazette vol. 85, part 41, 7 May B.E. 2511 The second of the two monuments in this batch named in the first national list, and the register agrees, coding this row 1, registered. The 2478 registration declared no boundaries; the 2511 instrument did, placing this monastery in zone 1, the 1,611 rai of monuments north of the city wall. Neither gazette was opened at source. Of the six records here, this is the one whose SAC entry also states the World Heritage inscription in full — 12 December B.E. 2534 at Carthage, Tunisia, list number 574 — rather than as a bare line. |
| World Heritage | Historic Town of Sukhothai and Associated Historic Towns (574) |
| Coordinates | 16.502940, 99.509764 Fine Arts Department register, Kamphaeng Phet park map service, monument 0003927 (ARCH_ID KPP061); checked against the register's subdistrict polygon layer, which returns Nong Pling (620110), the subdistrict the SAC record also states |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
Those two datings do not sit comfortably together: a founding at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries of the common era is earlier than the 20th-to-22nd-Buddhist-century range the register carries. The earlier date is one scholar's stylistic argument and the range is the department's. Both are printed and neither is adopted.
Wat Chang Rop stands on the top of the laterite ridge that the Aranyik zone occupies, and the siting is the first thing to understand about it. Everything else in the forest-monastery quarter sits below it. The monastery faces east, has a laterite boundary wall on the east and south sides only, and is built around one very large bell chedi raised on a tall square base with a stairway in the middle of each of the four sides climbing to a terrace on top.
The elephants are what the place is named for and they are a count, not an impression: 68 of them, modeled in stucco over laterite cores, emerging from the wall of that lower square base from the head and the two forelegs forward, with stucco ornament at the collar and bands at the top of each leg and at the ankle. Between one elephant and the next, the wall carries high-relief stucco trees. A great deal of that modeling has fallen away. So has something rarer: the round course above the octagonal one on the chedi itself was divided into 44 panels running right round, each carrying a stucco scene from the life of the Buddha, and below those a band of fired-clay hamsa. The panels have come off entirely. What is left is the division and the record that they were there.
There is one detail at Wat Chang Rop that the department says it has not found anywhere else, at Sukhothai or at Kamphaeng Phet. Where each stairway reaches the upper terrace it passes through a gate-arch, and the roof of that arch is decorated with a small bell-finialled chedi. The landings of the stairs carried stucco lions and door-guardians, now almost entirely gone. At the four corners of the terrace stand small chedi bases, and the fallen upper parts found there show that those corner chedis were built in the carambola-petal form. The principal chedi above them is down to the octagonal course, the round course and a little of what rose from it; the spire is gone.
In front of the chedi is a rectangular vihara base with a porch at both ends, still showing the monks' bench and the base the principal image stood on, carried on square laterite pillars. Beyond that the ground drops into a rectangular pond cut down into the laterite bed, which is not landscaping: that is the quarry the monastery's own building stone came out of. The ordination hall is off to the north of the vihara and is down to a small base, identifiable only because the boundary stones are still planted round it. Pitthaya Damdenngam excavated all of it in B.E. 2509, and Boonlom Onnom restored the chedi, viharas, ordination hall, pavilion and wall in B.E. 2532 and 2533.
The 68 half-elephants round the lower square base of the chedi, stucco over laterite cores, with ornament at the collar and bands at the top of each leg and at the ankle, and high-relief stucco trees in the wall between them.
The round course above the octagonal one, divided into the 44 panels that once held stucco scenes from the Buddha's life, with a band of fired-clay hamsa below them — the division survives, the panels do not.
The gate-arches where each of the four stairways reaches the upper terrace, each roofed with a small bell-finialled chedi, a detail the Fine Arts Department records as appearing at no other monument at Sukhothai or Kamphaeng Phet.
The four corner chedis on the terrace, whose fallen upper parts show they were built in the carambola-petal form.
The vihara in front, with porches at both ends, the monks' bench, the base of the principal image and square laterite pillars.
The rectangular pond cut down into the laterite bed beside the monastery, which is the quarry the building stone was taken from.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Every day, including government and public holidays, 8am to 4.30pm. The Fine Arts Department's own park site states these hours. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Thai nationals: 20 baht. Foreign visitors: 200 baht. |
| Dress | Ruins rather than a working monastery, but still a consecrated Buddhist site: shoulders and knees covered, and do not climb on the brickwork or sit with your feet toward an image. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | In the Aranyik zone, about 1,070 m north of the city moat and roughly 400 m west of Wat Sing, near the historical park office. It is at the top of the ridge, so the approach is uphill. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
Sixty-eight. The Fine Arts Department counts them exactly: half-elephants modeled in stucco over laterite cores, projecting from the wall of the chedi's lower square base from the head and forelegs forward.
Forty-four stucco panels of scenes from the Buddha's life, running right round the round course above the octagonal one, with a band of fired-clay hamsa below them. The panels have all fallen away; the division they were set in survives.
Because that is where the stone came from. The rectangular pond was cut down into the laterite bed to quarry the laterite used to build the monastery, and filled with water afterwards.
Each one passes through a gate-arch at the top, and each arch is roofed with a small bell-finialled chedi. The department records this as a form it has not found at any other monument at Sukhothai or Kamphaeng Phet.
Two state-published answers that do not agree. The register places the fabric in the 20th to 22nd Buddhist centuries; a 1979 Silpakorn University study comparing the chedi with Wat Chang Lom at Si Satchanalai argues for the turn of Ramkhamhaeng's and Lithai's reigns, which is earlier.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Kamphaeng Phet’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Last checked 1 November 2026
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.