Kokururi Castle

History

Kokururi Castle was built by Takeda Nobunaga around 1456. When the Takeda weakened and got caught up with internal conflicts the Satomi expanded their territory absorbing the area. When Satomi Yoshitaka took control of the Satomi clan, he established his main base at Kururi Castle in 1535. It is not clear whether this Kokururi Castle was abandoned after the construction of Kururi Castle or if was maintained as a dejiro or satellite fortification.

Visit Notes

Kururi Castle is well known to most for the mock keep, but there is actually an older mountaintop castle just to the northwest of Kururi Castle that predates it. It is often called Kokururi Castle or Kururi Kojo (old Kururi Castle). From the station, first walk to the Shinshoji Temple (see details on the Kururi Castle page). There is supposedly a gate from the original castle, but there was no such gate that I could see from other pictures online. Perhaps it has been moved or taken down. Next continue on to the nearby elementary school. I started climbing from the base of the mountain near the elementary school and a trail called the Asamayama Trail (check the GPS of my photos for the exact location). The initial ridge of the castle has several deep horikiri trenches and a couple side baileys. Once you get to the "main" part of the castle, also called Uenjo, there's a kind of yokobori trench and more horikiri that intersect making a formidable barrier around it. This whole mountaintop castle is a bit tricky to navigate. It has some signs but several sections of the trail have been washed out and trees have fallen over blocking or taking out parts of the trail. It was a bit challenging to circumnavigate these parts and in one spot I had to climb up and over a tree and tip up mound because I could see no safer way to go around. As you can see from the photos the trail mostly follows the ridge and deep horikiri where there are often guide ropes to help you up/down but I would still recommend a trekking pole or at least good shoes to tempt this site. Once I reached the top and got to Kururi Castle there was a sign that said the trail was closed for severe typhoon damage and erosion in 2019, so I assume there has been no maintenance since then. There was no such sign at the trailhead at the bottom of the mountain.

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Gallery

Castle Profile
English Name	Kokururi Castle
Japanese Name	古久留里城
Alternate Names	Kururiko-jo, Furukururi-jo
Founder	Takeda Nobunaga
Year Founded	1456
Castle Type	Mountaintop
Castle Condition	Ruins only
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Features	trenches
Visitor Information
Access	Kururi Sta. (Kururi Line), 25 min walk to trailhead behind the elementary school
Visitor Information	mountain trails, open 24/7; trails were technically closed as of May 2021 due to typhoon damage
Time Required	90 mins
Location	Kimitsu, Chiba Prefecture
Coordinates	35° 17' 21.05" N, 140° 5' 21.23" E
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Admin
Added to Jcastle	2021
Contributor	Eric
Admin Year Visited	2021
Admin Visits	May 3, 2021

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