Ohmizo Castle

History

Oda Nobunaga ordered his nephew, Oda Nobuzumi to construct a castle at Takashima to control the western shores of Lake Biwa. The castle was designed by Akechi Mitsuhide. It also functioned as an important port on Lake Biwa. After the Battle of Tennosan in 1582 with the demise of Akechi Mitsuhide, Oda Nobuzumi’s loyalty was called into question, and he was killed by Niwa Nagahide’s troops. After that, Toyotomi Hideyoshi installed one of his generals, Kyougoku Takatsugu as the lord of Oomizo Castle. Takatsugu was also married to Hatsu, one of Asai Nagamasa’s daughters. The castle was decommissioned under “One castle per domain” edict and many stones and parts were used to build Minakuchi Okayama Castle. In 1619, Ohmizo Jin'ya was established in the Sannomaru Bailey. Any remaining remnants of Ohmizo Castle were developed over but for some reason the stone foundation of the main keep survived to today.

Visit Notes

There is only the stone base of the castle keep left here but the stone remains are impressive for their size and that they survived in the middle of the town this whole time. There are some signs of districts that existed around the castle town to help provide some sense of the original castle. I found it to feel even smaller than it looks on the maps! A few of those photographs may be found below, but to be honest I'm not sure if they should belong to the castle or Ohmizo Jin'ya.

Original Profile by RaymondW (2012) updated by Eric in 2024.

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Castle Profile
English Name	Ohmizo Castle
Japanese Name	大溝城
Alternate Names	Takashima Castle
Founder	Oda Nobuzumi
Year Founded	1578
Castle Type	Flatland
Castle Condition	Ruins only
Designations	Local Historic Site
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Features	water moats, trenches, stone walls
Visitor Information
Access	Omitakashima Sta. (Kosei Line), 5 min walk
Visitor Information	Park, open anytime
Time Required	30 minutes
Website	http://www.biwako-visitors.jp/search/spot all 902.html
Location	Takashima, Shiga Prefecture
Coordinates	35° 17' 32.86" N, 136° 0' 46.48" E
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Admin
Added to Jcastle	2012
Contributor	RaymondW
Admin Year Visited	Viewer Contributed, 2023
Admin Visits	Sept 29, 2023
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1.40

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Matthew WardGunshi

17 months ago

Score 0

I visited Takashima with my kids a few years ago, and we stumbled on the ruins of the main keep foundation. As shown in the picture above, there really isn't much to see here besides the overgrown stones of the tenshu foundation, with only the stairs being in semi-reasonable shape. It does have a certain atmosphere, though. I wouldn't recommend anyone going out of their way to see it, but since a lot of people like to come to Takashima to see the floating shrine Shirahige Jinja, it's worth checking out the historic districts and the minimal castle ruins--as mentioned below, at least there are definitely some remnants of the castle town.

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ARTShogun

46 months ago

Score 1

Ômizojō (Takashima, Shiga) 　大溝城［滋賀県高島市］

Ômizojō was my last castle visit of 2020. I couldn’t see much of the castle ruins because everywhere was covered in two feet of snow. The snow was powdery soft and not difficult to wade through, however, so I ploughed through to the tenshudai (platform for main keep). I could just make out the ishigaki (stone-piled ramparts) beneath the snow. It seems the tenshudai is elevated above a surrounding field which used to be an inlet from the lake. This was all snow to me, and I couldn’t tell whether beneath was ground or frozen water, so I just stayed on the tenshudai and didn’t walk around the base. I can’t say much about my opinion of the ruins, but the park was very beautiful in so much snow, and it was quite an adventure.

I’ll go back to Ômizojō some time. The town is scenic with historical sites, and it would be nice to explore the neighbourhood in less extreme conditions. Other than the tenshudai and park, the only thing we saw of the town was a large statue to Gulliver which is outside of the station.

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SuupaahiirooAshigaru

73 months ago

Score 1

I found myself here by chance after visiting nearby Shirahige Jinja, a famous shrine. The castle walls here are slightly interesting, largely made up of natural boulders, it seems.

More interesting than the castle is the Ōmizo Sōmon, a nagaya-mon style gate. This gate was probably built in 1755. The town for the commonfolk and the samurai residence quarter were strictly separated and the Sōmon served as a gateway between the two. Currently there's a small tourist office inside where you can pick up some flyers about the town.

When I visited Ōmizo for the local festival in summer, I came upon a largely unmentioned samurai residence in town. It's not open to the public. It doesn't seem to be in a good state; I'm not sure if there are still people living there. There was a sign outside, though, with some information. To sum up some of the main points: it used to be inhabited by the Kasai Family (笠井家) and the house was changed quite a bit throughout the years. For example, there used to be a nagayamon in front of the house but it was moved a few meters and merged with the genkan of the main building in the Taishō Period.

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