The royal monastery in the middle of the provincial town at Pak Nam, whose preaching hall is a group of Thai teak houses and whose mondop holds four nested Buddha footprints.
วัดกลางวรวิหาร · Wat Klang Worawihan
| Official name | วัดกลางวรวิหาร — Wat Klang Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Pak Nam, Mueang Samut Prakan, Samut Prakan |
| Royal temple class | Second class royal temple, Worawihan (พระอารามหลวงชั้นโท วรวิหาร) The Samut Prakan provincial government's own page on the monastery gives the grade as พระอารามหลวงชั้นโท. The sub-rank วรวิหาร is the one carried in the monastery's own official name, วัดกลางวรวิหาร, which the provincial government uses. The National Office of Buddhism roster was not reached, and วรวิหาร is a sub-rank of both the second and third classes, so this is the weakest royal-grade attribution on this province page. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Not established. |
Pak Nam, Mueang Samut Prakan, Samut Prakan
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 the thinnest source chain of the six monuments on this province page. One state body — the provincial government — carries nearly everything below, and no monument register, gazette announcement or National Office of Buddhism entry was reached to corroborate any of it.
Wat Klang Worawihan stands on Thanon Si Samut in Pak Nam, in the middle of the provincial town — which is what its name says, since klang simply means the middle one. The Samut Prakan provincial government's page on the monastery places its origins in the late Ayutthaya period and records that it was formerly called Wat Tako Thong. Almost everything else about its early life reaches this page as the monastery's own telling rather than as a documented sequence, and it is set out below in those terms: an abandonment, and a revival, around the collapse of the old capital.
The documented history begins later and is mostly a history of repair and elevation. The provincial government records that the ordination hall was restored in the Third Reign — which places the surviving fabric of the building in the middle of the nineteenth century rather than in the Ayutthaya period the monastery's origins belong to — and dates the mondop that houses the Buddha footprints to B.E. 2449 (1906). Those are the two firm points, and they are a century apart. What stands between them is not recorded by any source this run could reach.
The ordination hall carries stucco ornament, and its interior is painted with the Pathomsomphothikatha — the standard cycle of the Buddha's life from the descent to the first sermon, which is the most common mural programme in a Thai ordination hall and one of the most useful to be able to read. The mondop holds four Buddha footprints set one inside another, which is the conventional arrangement and not an oddity: the nesting represents the four Buddhas of this aeon rather than four separate relics.
The building most worth going for, though, is the preaching hall. The provincial government describes it as a set of Thai houses built as a group, in teak throughout — ruean thai baep ruean mu mai sak thang lang — and singles out the carved woodwork and stucco as work that badly deserves conservation. A monastic hall built as a cluster of domestic timber buildings rather than as a single masonry block is increasingly rare in the central plain, and it is the thing here that a visitor is least likely to find elsewhere. This page has one state source for all of it, which is said plainly in the open questions below.
The ordination hall with its stucco ornament — the fabric the provincial government records as restored in the Third Reign rather than as original to the monastery's founding.
Interior murals of the Pathomsomphothikatha, the life of the Buddha from the descent to the first sermon.
The mondop of B.E. 2449 (1906), holding four Buddha footprints set one within another.
The preaching hall, built as a group of Thai houses in teak throughout, with carved woodwork the provincial government names as deserving conservation.
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 royal monastery in the middle of a working town. Covered shoulders and knees are the ordinary expectation; no dress rule specific to this monastery was published by any official source read for this page. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | On Thanon Si Samut in Pak Nam subdistrict, Mueang Samut Prakan district, in the centre of the provincial town. No coordinate is published by any source read for this page, so no map or directions link is shown. |
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 no source that names this monastery publishes a coordinate. It is absent from ONEP's cultural-environment register and from the Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre database, and this guide does not place a pin from a name search. The street address is given instead.
The Samut Prakan provincial government gives second class, and its official name carries the sub-rank Worawihan. That sub-rank belongs to both the second and third classes, so the name does not confirm the grade on its own, and the National Office of Buddhism roster was not reached this run. This is the least well attested royal grade on this province page.
The provincial government records it as restored in the Third Reign, which places the surviving fabric in the mid-nineteenth century. The monastery's origins are placed much earlier, in the late Ayutthaya period, but no building of that date is identified.
A group of Thai houses built in teak throughout rather than a single masonry hall — ruean thai baep ruean mu mai sak thang lang, in the provincial government's words — with carved woodwork and stucco the same page names as deserving conservation.
No. No official source read for this page publishes them, so this guide does not state a time rather than copying one from a travel site.
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 Samut Prakan’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.