Shibuya Castle

History

Shibuya Castle starts with a fortified home of Kawasaki Motoie in the Heian Period. His son Shigeie took on the surname Shibuya. The castle is situated atop a hill with the Shibuya River along one side. The castle was captured and burned down by the Hojo in 1524. A stone in front of the temple is supposedly from the original castle.

Visit Notes

Walking from the station and around the outside of the shrine, you can tell it would have been a good location for a castle. A nice rounded hilltop with good views of the area and a good water supply.

Recent considerations by castle experts, namely Nishimata Fusao, legendary Kanto castle expert, downgrade this to barely a fortified manor and certainly not a castle as legends would have you believe. It looks like it is on a hilltop but it is actually only partway up a gradual slope and there are no other natural defenses leaving it vulnerable to attack. It is close to the main highway of the Kamakura Kaido, but it would have been too insignificant to have any major effect on the highway in terms of monitoring or controlling it. This type of location was common for Kamakura Period samurai residences, but samurai residences were not typically used as castles at this time. For any significant attack they would have left their homes.

Loading map...

{"format":"leaflet","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"limit":500,"offset":0,"link":"all","sort":["order"],"order":[],"headers":"show","mainlabel":"","intro":"","outro":"","searchlabel":"... further results","default":"","import-annotation":false,"width":"auto","height":"350px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"Darkred18.png","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"zoom":false,"defzoom":14,"layers":["Esri.WorldTopoMap"],"image layers":[],"overlays":[],"resizable":false,"fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":true,"cluster":false,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clustermaxradius":80,"clusterspiderfy":true,"geojson":"","clicktarget":"","showtitle":false,"hidenamespace":true,"template":"InfoWindowProfile","userparam":"","activeicon":"","pagelabel":false,"ajaxcoordproperty":"","ajaxquery":"","locations":[{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya6.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya6.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/0/08/Shibuya6.jpg/125px-Shibuya6.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/0/08/Shibuya6.jpg/188px-Shibuya6.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/0/08/Shibuya6.jpg/250px-Shibuya6.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65716,"lon":139.707,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"},{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya1.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya1.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/b/b9/Shibuya1.jpg/125px-Shibuya1.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/b/b9/Shibuya1.jpg/188px-Shibuya1.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/b/b9/Shibuya1.jpg/250px-Shibuya1.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65718,"lon":139.70686,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"},{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya5.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya5.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/0/0a/Shibuya5.jpg/125px-Shibuya5.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/0/0a/Shibuya5.jpg/188px-Shibuya5.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/0/0a/Shibuya5.jpg/250px-Shibuya5.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65746,"lon":139.70651,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"},{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya2.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya2.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/3/36/Shibuya2.jpg/125px-Shibuya2.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/3/36/Shibuya2.jpg/188px-Shibuya2.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/3/36/Shibuya2.jpg/250px-Shibuya2.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65726,"lon":139.70676,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"},{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya4.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya4.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/0/01/Shibuya4.jpg/125px-Shibuya4.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/0/01/Shibuya4.jpg/188px-Shibuya4.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/0/01/Shibuya4.jpg/250px-Shibuya4.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65744,"lon":139.70638,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"},{"text":"\u003Cdiv style=\"width:150px\"\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/view/File:Shibuya3.jpg\" class=\"image\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Shibuya3.jpg\" src=\"../images/thumb/e/e3/Shibuya3.jpg/125px-Shibuya3.jpg\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"125\" height=\"94\" srcset=\"../images/thumb/e/e3/Shibuya3.jpg/188px-Shibuya3.jpg 1.5x, ../images/thumb/e/e3/Shibuya3.jpg/250px-Shibuya3.jpg 2x\" /\u003E\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\n\u003C/div\u003E","title":"","link":"","lat":35.65746,"lon":139.7064,"icon":"../images/0/06/Darkred18.png"}],"imageLayers":[]}

Gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Castle Profile
English Name	Shibuya Castle
Japanese Name	渋谷城
Founder	Shibuya Clan
Year Founded	Heian Period
Castle Type	Fortified Manor
Castle Condition	Ruins only
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Features
Visitor Information
Access	Shibuya Station (JR Yamanote Line); 10 mins walk
Visitor Information	Shrine, open 24/7
Time Required	15 mins
Website	https://www.konno-hachimangu.jp/index en.html
Location	Tokyo, Tokyo
Coordinates	35° 39' 26.89" N, 139° 42' 22.68" E
Loading map... {"type":"TERRAIN","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps","width":"auto","height":"200px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"Castlemarker.png","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":6,"layers":[],"controls":[""],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":35.657469444444,"lon":139.7063,"icon":"../images/1/1e/Castlemarker.png"}]}
Admin
Added to Jcastle	2022
Contributor	Eric
Admin Year Visited	2021
Admin Visits	Dec 27, 2021
Friends of JCastle
Kojodan: Shibuya-jo
Shirobito: Shibuya-jo

1.00

(2 votes)

Add your comment

Jcastle.info welcomes all comments. If you do not want to be anonymous, register or log in. It is free.

Sort by date Sort by score

Enable comment auto-refresher

You are ignoring the author of this comment

Show comment | Manage ignore list

ARTShogun

27 months ago

Score 0

I've added a picture of the model of the fort in the shrine's treasure room.

Permalink | Reply