The largest of the Burmese temples built in Thailand by the teak merchants of the timber boom, raised in B.E. 2433 by a merchant called U Yo — and a hard case in conservation, because the wihan that made it famous burned down in 1992 and what stands now is a rebuilding.
วัดศรีชุม · Wat Si Chum
| Official name | วัดศรีชุม — Wat Si Chum |
|---|---|
| Where | Suan Dok, Mueang Lampang, Lampang |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Carried in the national monument register; no gazette registration recorded Two state sources give the year and neither gives a citation. The Tourism Authority of Thailand states that Wat Si Chum ได้รับการจดทะเบียนเป็นโบราณสถานเมื่อ พ.ศ. 2524, and the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration's community-based tourism site states the same year in the same words. Neither prints a volume, part or date, and the Royal Gazette's own site refused every request in this run, so B.E. 2524 is recorded here as a year two state agencies agree on rather than as a reference this guide has read. |
Suan Dok, Mueang Lampang, Lampang
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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.
This is one of the few temples in this guide whose beginning is not in doubt at all, and one of the few whose famous building no longer exists. The distinction the page has to keep is not between record and tradition here but between the monument as registered and the monument as it now stands: what a visitor sees is a reconstruction, with the surviving burnt fragments displayed behind it.
Lampang in the last decades of the nineteenth century was a teak town. The British firms working the northern forests brought Burmese and Shan foremen, clerks and contractors with them, and those men made money and did with it what the custom of their own country expected: they built temples. The tourism authority counts thirty-one Burmese temples in Thailand and says this is the largest of them. It was raised in B.E. 2433 in Tambon Suan Dok by a merchant named U Yo, who had followed the British into the forestry business and built the temple once he was prosperous enough to.
That origin is why the architecture looks the way it does. The wihan was described by both state sources as half masonry and half timber, worked in a mixture of Lanna and Burmese manner, under a tiered timber roof rising to a carved spire. This is not a Thai temple with foreign decoration on it; it is a Burmese building in a Thai town, made by people who lived in both worlds, and Lampang has more of them than anywhere else in the country. The Fine Arts Department registered it as an ancient monument in B.E. 2524, according to both the tourism authority and the state tourism development agency.
Eleven years later it burned. In the early morning of 16 January B.E. 2535 fire took the entire wihan. The tourism authority's account is specific about what survived: the pierced carved woodwork of foliage and plant forms over the entrance arch, and effectively nothing else. The temple has since been rebuilt, and the charred fragments of the building's ornament are displayed behind the new wihan rather than being discarded.
That display is the reason this page exists in the form it does. A visitor standing in front of the wihan is looking at a reconstruction of a monument, not at the 1890 fabric, and every honest description of the site has to say so before it says anything about the carving. The pieces at the back are the original. It is also a useful corrective to the way heritage is usually written about: a registered monument is not a permanent one, the registration did not save this building, and the fragments behind it are the most valuable thing on the site.
The rebuilt wihan, in the half-masonry, half-timber form both state sources describe, under a tiered timber roof rising to a carved spire — Lanna and Burmese work in the same building.
The pierced, carved woodwork of foliage over the entrance arch: per the tourism authority, the one element of the original building that came through the 1992 fire.
The burnt fragments of the original ornament, displayed behind the wihan — the actual nineteenth-century fabric of the temple, and the part of the site most worth slowing down for.
The compound in Tambon Suan Dok itself, a short way west of the Lampang town centre, which is the district where the teak-era Burmese community settled and where several of the other Burmese temples of the province stand.
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 | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | Tambon Suan Dok, Mueang Lampang 52100, west of the town centre — the address both the tourism authority and the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration give. |
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.
Because of teak. British timber firms working the northern forests in the late nineteenth century brought Burmese and Shan foremen and contractors with them, and those men built temples when they prospered, in the architecture of their own country. The Tourism Authority of Thailand counts thirty-one Burmese temples in Thailand and calls this the largest of them; it was raised in B.E. 2433 by a merchant named U Yo who had come into the forestry business with the British.
Not the original one. Fire destroyed the entire wihan in the early morning of 16 January B.E. 2535, and according to the tourism authority the only part of the original building to survive was the pierced carved woodwork of foliage over the entrance arch. The temple has been rebuilt since. The charred fragments of the original ornament are displayed behind the new wihan, and those pieces rather than the building are the nineteenth-century fabric a visitor has come to see.
Both the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration state that it was registered as an ancient monument in B.E. 2524, eleven years before the fire. Neither publishes the Royal Gazette volume, part or date, and the gazette's own site refused every request in this run, so this guide records the year on the agreement of two state agencies and does not print a citation it has not read.
No. Wat Si Chum in Sukhothai Historical Park is the walled mondop containing the great seated image Phra Achana, inside a UNESCO World Heritage property, and this guide carries it under Sukhothai. Wat Si Chum in Lampang is a Burmese temple of B.E. 2433 in Tambon Suan Dok, in a different province and a different century. The name is common and the two are unrelated; both have pages here under their own provinces.
This guide cannot tell you, and that is a finding rather than a gap. The Tourism Authority of Thailand publishes an attraction page for this temple whose opening-hours field is empty, and the Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration's page states none either; both were read in this run, in the same session in which three other Lampang temples' hours were successfully obtained from the tourism authority. Rather than copy a time from a travel site, this page says the hours could not be confirmed from an official source.
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 Lampang’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.
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.