A third-class royal monastery in the palace quarter, made in 1915 by joining two older monasteries into one — with a vihara the Fine Arts Department once argued was a Persian mosque and once a Christian church, and two Narai-period brick buildings named for Persia.
วัดเสาธงทอง · Wat Sao Thong Thong
| Official name | วัดเสาธงทอง — Wat Sao Thong Thong |
|---|---|
| Where | Tha Hin, Mueang Lopburi, Lopburi |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Saman (ชั้นตรี สามัญ) The National Office of Buddhism's Lopburi provincial office states in its own words that Wat Sao Thong Thong is a royal monastery of the third class, ordinary type, on Thanon Farangset in Tambon Tha Hin. The Government Public Relations Department's Lopburi office records the same rank in the course of a dated act: on 2 April B.E. 2567 the Governor of Lopburi read the Supreme Patriarch's command appointing Phra Khru Siri Chariyaphon, the ecclesiastical head of Amphoe Mueang Lopburi, as abbot of วัดเสาธงทอง พระอารามหลวง ชั้นตรี ชนิดสามัญ, following a resolution of the Sangha Supreme Council of 20 February B.E. 2567, in a ceremony held in the Khorasan building at the temple. Neither document is the instrument that conferred the rank, and no announcement elevating the temple to royal-monastery status, and no date for it, was located in this run. The grade is therefore stated as the current administrative fact these two state offices record, not as a dated act. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 102, part 128, p. 4457, 17 September B.E. 2528 Registered as item 5 under Lopburi in the ประกาศกรมศิลปากร กำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ at vol. 53 p. 904 of 2 August B.E. 2479 — one line above Wat Nakhon Kosa in the same list, and again a bare name with no boundary. The monument land was fixed by a ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน under section 7 of the Ancient Monuments Act B.E. 2504, at vol. 102 part 128 p. 4457 of 17 September B.E. 2528, issued 23 August B.E. 2528 and signed by Thawisak Senanarong as Director-General, at about 6 rai 2 ngan 74 square wa. The department's file shows that the delimitation was not routine: the monastery had applied from June B.E. 2526 to put up commercial shophouses on its land, the Lopburi old-city conservation committee resolved in October B.E. 2527 that the department should fix the monument zone, and after the zone was gazetted the applications were refused in February B.E. 2529. Two land figures coexist and do not conflict once separated — the gazetted monument zone of 6-2-74 sits inside the monastery's own freehold, which the register records as title deed 11036 at 15 rai 93 square wa and which the National Office of Buddhism gives as about 15 rai 1 ngan. |
| Coordinates | 14.801992, 100.609180 Fine Arts Department heritage GIS register, monument 0000698, recorded by GPS |
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.
The department's B.E. 2513 monograph dates the double boundary stones round the old Wat Ruak ordination hall to late Ayutthaya, from the reign of King Prasat Thong onward — which is later than Narai for that part of the compound. The register does not reconcile that with its B.E. 2209–2231 span.
Wat Sao Thong Thong stands on Thanon Farangset, the Rue de France, a few minutes north of King Narai's palace and opposite the municipal fresh market. It is a working royal monastery of the third class, ordinary type, and the ordinary business of one goes on inside it. It is also a registered ancient monument, and the two facts sit in the same compound: the gazetted monument zone of about 6 rai 2 ngan 74 square wa is a smaller shape inside the monastery's own fifteen-odd rai of freehold.
The monastery as it exists is an administrative creation with a precise date. On 17 January B.E. 2457 the Supreme Patriarch Prince Vajirananavarorasa, inspecting the old-capital ecclesiastical region, reached Lopburi and directed that two neighbouring monasteries — Wat Sao Thong Thong to the north and Wat Ruak to the south — be joined into one under the northern name, with the abbot of Wat Ruak at its head. The Fine Arts Department printed the inspection record verbatim in a monograph for the royal kathin here in B.E. 2513, quoting the provincial commissioner's submission that one temple had a vihara and the other an ordination hall and that they might sensibly be one. That is why the compound today has an ordination hall from one former monastery and a great vihara from the other, and why its boundary stones date later than its most famous building.
The buildings themselves belong to King Narai's Lopburi, and the department dates them to his reign — B.E. 2209 to 2231 — on the evidence of their architecture and of the French engineers' map of the town. The great vihara has pointed-arch windows of the Western fashion of that reign. Two brick buildings in the compound are named for Persia: the Khorasan building, which the register says was built to receive foreign guests, and the Picchu building, whose pointed arches the department describes as Catholic in manner.
What the vihara was before it was a vihara is the question this temple is really known for, and the state has answered it two different ways. The department's modern register presumes that the mosque of the Persian quarter stood on this spot. Its own monograph of B.E. 2513 left the question open between a mosque and a Christian church, and reported as evidence for the church that an iron cross had been found inside the Buddha image. The register has quietly dropped that alternative; this page keeps both, because the department published both.
Even the buildings' names are unsettled. The register offers a Persian gem merchant for Picchu and, in the next breath, the French word petit meaning small; the monograph adds a third reading meaning jewels. The Khorasan building is spelled at least four ways across the department's own register, project titles and correspondence. None of this is carelessness so much as a record of a place where three languages were in use at once.
It is an active royal monastery, free to enter, and the notes below record what could and could not be established about visiting it.
The great vihara, restored in B.E. 2554 at 5,440,000 baht, with the pointed-arch windows the department reads as the Western fashion of King Narai's reign. Inside is Luang Pho To, a stucco Buddha in the attitude of subduing Mara, Ayutthaya work, six metres across the lap and about nine metres high — three wa and four wa two sok in the measures the Fine Arts Department and the National Office of Buddhism both use, and the two agree on the figures exactly. Wall niches hold further images.
The stone image of Kaccayana in the same hall, which the department's register says was brought here from the deserted Wat Kosa in Lopburi — that is Wat Nakhon Kosa, five minutes away across the railway. The register gives its dimensions under a field label that reads window rather than lap width, which is plainly a slip in the record.
The ordination hall, of which the walls are the old fabric; it was rebuilt after a fire late in B.E. 2470 with a reinforced-concrete roof structure, four thickened walls and a front porch, keeping the old form. Its principal image is a standing crowned Buddha in the attitude of calming the ocean, sandstone at the core with modelling over it, late Ayutthaya work. Round it stand double boundary stones, carved, which the department's B.E. 2513 monograph dates to late Ayutthaya from the reign of King Prasat Thong onward.
The chedi between the vihara and the preaching hall, brick and mortar on an octagonal base, with eight niches above the base each holding a Buddha in the attitude of calming the ocean and a Lankan bell above. The department is explicit that what stands is not the original silhouette: the original rose only to the neck of the bell and was round throughout, and the present outer surface is thick re-rendering that made it larger than it was.
The Khorasan building, two storeys, 12 by 18 metres, which the register says was built in King Narai's reign to receive foreign guests. Much of what you see is departmental replacement, and the B.E. 2533 contract says so item by item: all the roof tiles stripped and the timber frame inspected and spliced, reinforced-concrete beams poured, render hacked back to the brick, window and door frames spliced, the upper timber floor lifted and re-laid, an eight-centimetre concrete ground slab and a one-metre paved apron, and complete rewiring. A further campaign was accepted on 11 February B.E. 2565.
The Picchu building, L-shaped, two narrow storeys built as twin blocks with a veranda between them, pointed-arch doors and windows, a triangular roof of pointed-tail terracotta tiles on a timber frame, solid brick gable ends, a polished sand-cement ground floor and a hardwood upper floor. It was restored in B.E. 2537 to departmental design and inspection and paid for entirely by the monastery.
The bell tower, brick and mortar, two wa across the base and five wa high. There were three; one survives, and the department believes it is of the same generation as the great vihara. The bells from the demolished pair were rehung on a new belfry in front of the preaching hall.
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 | A working royal monastery: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the vihara and the ordination hall. No official dress notice was found; this is ordinary practice rather than a published rule. |
| Photography | No official restriction was found. Treat the ordination hall and any monk at prayer as off limits unless invited. |
| Getting there | Thanon Farangset, Tambon Tha Hin, Amphoe Mueang Lopburi, opposite the municipal fresh market, north of Phra Narai Ratchaniwet and south of the envoys' residence, with roads on all four sides. The National Office of Buddhism publishes no telephone number for the temple. |
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.
The Fine Arts Department has said two different things about that and both are its own. Its modern register presumes, with สันนิษฐานว่าน่าจะเป็น, that the mosque of the Persian quarter marked on the French engineers' map of King Narai's Lopburi stood where the vihara now stands. Its own monograph of B.E. 2513, printed for the royal kathin at this temple, set the question out as open between a mosque and a Christian church and reported that an iron cross had been found inside the Buddha image as evidence for the church reading. The register no longer mentions that alternative. No document settles it, and this guide prints both rather than choosing.
Two monasteries became one, by direction of the Supreme Patriarch, on a date the Fine Arts Department publishes from the inspection record itself. On 17 January B.E. 2457 Prince Vajirananavarorasa, inspecting the ecclesiastical region of the old capital, reached Lopburi; the provincial commissioner submitted that Wat Sao Thong Thong had a vihara and Wat Ruak had an ordination hall and that they could sensibly be joined. The Prince agreed, approved the combined temple being called Wat Sao Thong Thong, and appointed the abbot of Wat Ruak to head it. That is the one securely dated event in the institution's history, and it explains why the compound's ordination hall and its great vihara come from different places.
It is a royal monastery of the third class, ordinary type. The National Office of Buddhism's Lopburi provincial office states the grade in its own words, and the Government Public Relations Department records it in the course of a dated act: on 2 April B.E. 2567 the Governor of Lopburi read the Supreme Patriarch's command appointing Phra Khru Siri Chariyaphon as abbot of the temple in exactly those terms, following a Sangha Supreme Council resolution of 20 February B.E. 2567. What could not be found is the instrument that conferred the rank in the first place, or any date for it, so the grade is given here as the current administrative fact these offices record rather than as a dated elevation.
Because the quarter was Persian, on the department's reading of the French engineers' map of King Narai's Lopburi, and because the building is recorded as having been used to receive foreign guests and envoys. Khorasan is a Persian province, and the register presumes on that basis that the Khorasan building housed Muslim visitors. The department spells the name at least four ways across its own register, project titles and correspondence. The neighbouring Picchu building is named even less certainly: the register offers a Persian gem merchant and the French word petit side by side without choosing, and the department's own monograph adds a third gloss meaning jewels.
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 Lopburi’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.