Summer 2021 Castle Travels Update
Summer 2021 Castle Travels Update
2022/01/17
It was a slow summer for castle travels but I did get out to a few sites. Generally I pause most castle adventures after Golden Week. I tend to prefer mountain castle ruins which are generally not as enjoyable in the summer. This was just two days however. One in Gunma and one in Mito just after the newly reconstructed Sumi Yagura was opened to the public.
Mito Castle / 水戸城
Nagurumi Castle / 名胡桃城
Shibukawa Yorii Castle / 渋川寄居城
Shiroi Castle / 白井城
Shiroi Castle is well known for the Shiroi-juku post town running alongside it. The castle was actually abandoned in 1624 but the post town prospered throughout the Edo Period. The street has a nice waterway down the middle but nothing seemed to be open and I did not want to spend much time in between bouts of rain so I moved on to the castle. If you follow the signs from the post town area you first run into the main feature of this castle which is a giant crescent shaped dry moat/trench. Along the outside of this trench is a narrow "obi-kuruwa" or "belt bailey" running most of the length of the crescent.
Following along the bottom of the crescent trench will take you up to the honmaru entrance which is a masugata with some stonework remnants and earthen embankments around the honmaru. You should notice here that it is not just a masugata entrance but there is a narrow "earth bridge" leading into the masugata with the trenches on either side. In the honmaru I do suggest you go to the back of the Honmaru and use the path to the top of the embankment to walk this edge around the Honmaru for better views of the masugata and embankments. In the back of the Honmaru is also a small sub bailey called the Sasakuruwa.
After the Honmaru the Ninomaru, Sannomaru, and Kitakuruwa baileys are all farmland or houses today, but they have some small stone pillars to mark the boundaries. At the entrance to the Kitakuruwa Bailey is a large hill with a little temple on top. This was likely a watchtower/yagura location.Recent News
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