Saiki Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Saiki Castle stands on Hachiman-yama, a hill about 144 metres high overlooking the Banjō estuary in Ōita Prefecture, and is also known as Tsuruya-jō. Its construction, from 1602 to 1606 according to the Castle Foundation, is attributed to Mōri Takamasa, the first daimyō of the domain, who came from Hita. The tradition should nonetheless be treated with caution: the survey report published by the city in 2022 notes that no surviving document directly confirms the year construction began, and suggests that an administrative base already existed in the Toyotomi period, after the Ōtomo lands were confiscated in 1593. The castle's core, with the honmaru, ninomaru and outer enclosures, occupies a very restricted summit, among the smallest of the mountain castles of the Edo period, which, according to the study, would explain a layout with few bends, obtuse angles and corner towers on cantilevers. A covered bridge links the honmaru and the ninomaru. The three-storey keep is known only from documentation: still mentioned in 1620, it had disappeared by 1709. The twin ponds, Ō-ike and Me-ike, served both to supply water and to regulate runoff, and the stone wall with terraced steps, raised after the collapse of 1734, bears witness to a sophisticated hydraulic expertise. At the foot of the hill, the sannomaru gate-tower, the only surviving historic building, marks the site of the domain's administration; the site has since become Shiroyama Historical Park.