Pagoda

A Buddhist tower, drawn as a map symbol for landmarks.

A pagoda is a tower of stacked storeys, each with its own roof, that stands in many East Asian Buddhist temples. It descends from the Indian stupa, a domed mound built over relics of the Buddha or revered teachers. As Buddhism spread through Central Asia into China, builders gave the stupa's sacred role to China's own multi-storey towers, and the pagoda took shape; it then spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam, changing with each local tradition. A pagoda is usually a monument to venerate, standing beside the hall where people gather to worship.

🛔 sits among Unicode's transport and map symbols, beside its relative the stupa 🛓. It was encoded to mark a Buddhist temple or monument on maps and guides, much as a cross marks a church.

Someone sent me 🛔 — what do they mean?

Most likely a pagoda, temple or Buddhist site they mean.

Standard emoji keyboards usually don't offer 🛔, so whoever sent it probably picked it on purpose, for example in travel plans or a list of places. On its own it names no particular place; the words around it tell you which temple. It has no widely established emotional or slang meaning.