Inari is the god or rice and of success in commercial ventures, and his temples are readily identified by their numerous torii gates, which are presented to the shrine as offerings to the god. The fox is the god's familiar and relation, hence the carvings, statues, and fox figurines at these shrines. Why the mouse figures at these shrines? Well, foxes are known to consider the rodent a delicacy, and an offering of mouse, fried so as to slow putrefaction, was believed particularly pleasing to the fox. Fried tofu (aburage) was eventually adopted as a substitute for the harder-to-obtain mice. The small shrine at the bottom of the steps contains an iron lantern presented to some worthy individual (and later placed at the shrine) by the Imperial Regent Toyotomi Hideyoshi (latter half of the 16th C, if memory serves).
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