Satake-dera is traditionally said to have been founded in 985 at the behest of Retired Emperor Kazan (968–1008). Kazan reigned for only two years before abdicating — tricked into taking Buddhist vows by Fujiwara no Kanemichi and Michikane — and afterward, as a law-prince (hoo), he became the reviver of the Saigoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage and traveled widely to sacred sites. On a progress through Hitachi Province he is said to have come to this place and decreed the founding of a temple dedicated to the Eleven-Faced Kannon. The temple later became the prayer temple of the Satake clan after the clan's founding ancestor Satake Masayoshi performed his coming-of-age ceremony here. The thatched main hall rebuilt in 1543 (an Important Cultural Property) still preserves the lineage of devotion first inspired by Retired Emperor Kazan.