A city temple north of the old wall whose registered monument is a single building of about 620 square metres, and whose two Royal Gazette announcements — of 2479 and 2547 — give two different subdistricts for the same site.
วัดแจ้ง · Wat Chaeng
| Official name | วัดแจ้ง — Wat Chaeng |
|---|---|
| Where | Tha Wang, Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat, Nakhon Si Thammarat |
| 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 Registered: Royal Gazette vol. 53, 27 September B.E. 2479. Land boundary determined: Royal Gazette vol. 121, special part 53 ง, p. 6, 10 May B.E. 2547 Both citations come from one document that was read firsthand. The announcement ประกาศกรมศิลปากร เรื่อง กำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน, published in vol. 121, special part 53 ง, p. 6 on 10 May B.E. 2547, opens by reciting that the department had registered โบราณสถานวัดแจ้ง in ตำบลท่าวัง, Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat, in the Royal Gazette vol. 53 of 27 September B.E. 2479 without fixing a land boundary — which is how the 2479 citation is known here at first hand rather than at second. It then fixes the boundary at about 1 ngan 55 square wa, and it names the subdistrict as ตำบลปากพูน (เดิมคือตำบลท่าวัง) — Pak Phun, formerly Tha Wang. The department's own register still carries the site under Tha Wang twenty-two years later. Announced 28 January B.E. 2547, signed by Arak Sanghitkun, Director-General of the Fine Arts Department. Note also that 1 ngan 55 square wa is about 620 square metres: the registered monument is one building and its plot, not the temple compound. |
| Coordinates | 8.451013, 99.961004 Fine Arts Department FADGIS monument layer, WGS84, monument id 0005074 |
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 2479 announcement registered a national batch of monuments, and the same volume and date appear on the registrations of Wat Phra Mahathat here and of Wat Nang Phaya, Wat Chedi Yot Thong and Wat Mai Aphaiyaram in the Phitsanulok run. That is worth knowing for every province still in the queue: a great many Thai monument registrations date from that one 2479 exercise, and finding one of them tends to find several.
Wat Chaeng stands at the northern end of Thanon Ratchadamnoen, the long street that runs down through Nakhon Si Thammarat past Wat Phra Mahathat. The temple calls itself Wat Chaeng Worawihan, and Worawihan is a sub-rank of royal monastery, so it is very probably a royal temple. This guide does not print the grade, because no state ecclesiastical register that could be read in this run states it, and the National Office of Buddhism's provincial office publishes pages for five temples in the whole province and this is not one of them. An invented grade would be worse than an omitted one.
What can be stated exactly is the monument. The Fine Arts Department registered it in the Royal Gazette of 27 September B.E. 2479 — the same nationwide registration exercise that put Wat Phra Mahathat on the register four kilometres to the south — but registered it without fixing any land, which is a thing the department did routinely in the 1930s and spent the following seventy years correcting. The correction for Wat Chaeng came on 28 January B.E. 2547 and was published that May: about 1 ngan 55 square wa, roughly 620 square metres.
That figure is the most informative thing on this page. Six hundred and twenty square metres is one building and the ground it stands on. Whatever else is at Wat Chaeng — and it is an active temple with the usual complement of halls, quarters and a modern school block — the protected monument is a single structure. Anyone visiting on the strength of the registration should know they are going to see one building, not a compound.
The second thing the 2547 announcement does is move the temple, on paper. It names the site as being in ตำบลปากพูน and adds in parentheses เดิมคือตำบลท่าวัง — formerly Tambon Tha Wang. Tambon boundaries in Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat were redrawn as the municipality grew, and the northern part of Tha Wang became Pak Phun. The Fine Arts Department's own live register has not caught up: it still lists monument 0005074 under Tha Wang, twenty-two years after the department's own Director-General signed an instrument saying otherwise. This guide follows the register for the subdistrict field and prints the gazette here so the disagreement is on the page rather than buried.
This is the shortest record in the Nakhon Si Thammarat file, and deliberately so. Two announcements read at first hand, a register entry, a coordinate pair, and no history. A page that says that plainly is more useful than one that fills the gap with a founding date nobody can support.
The registered monument: one building on about 1 ngan 55 square wa of ground, fixed by the Royal Gazette announcement of 10 May B.E. 2547. The announcement's attached plan, which would identify which building, is not legible in the published PDF.
An active city temple around it at the northern end of Thanon Ratchadamnoen, with the ordinary complement of ubosot, wihan and monastic quarters.
The gate inscription reading วัดแจ้งวรวิหาร — the name the temple uses for itself, carrying a royal-monastery sub-rank that no state register readable in this run confirms. It is worth looking at precisely because this guide will not print the grade off it.
The distance to the rest of the guide: Wat Phra Mahathat is about 4 km south along the same street, and Wat Wang Tawan Tok about 1.5 km, so all three registered monuments on Ratchadamnoen can be seen in one walk or one songthaew ride.
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 | An active temple: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off in the halls. |
| Photography | No restriction stated by any official source read in this run. |
| Getting there | At the northern end of Thanon Ratchadamnoen in Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat, on the songthaew route that runs the length of the street. |
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.
It calls itself Wat Chaeng Worawihan, and Worawihan is a royal-monastery sub-rank, so it very probably is. This guide does not print a grade because no state ecclesiastical register that could be read confirms one, and stating a royal grade that no register supports is the kind of error this guide exists to avoid.
About 1 ngan 55 square wa — roughly 620 square metres — fixed by a Fine Arts Department announcement made on 28 January B.E. 2547 and published in the Royal Gazette on 10 May B.E. 2547. That is one building and its plot rather than the whole temple compound.
Because the Fine Arts Department disagrees with itself. Its 2547 announcement places the monument in Tambon Pak Phun and notes that this was formerly Tambon Tha Wang; its live monument register still carries the site under Tha Wang. The tambon boundaries in Mueang Nakhon Si Thammarat were redrawn as the municipality grew, and the register appears not to have been updated.
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 Nakhon Si Thammarat’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.