Funaoka Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Miyagi

Funaoka Castle, also called Shihotate, occupied Mount Shiho, a height of about 136 metres which, together with Mount Nirekami opposite, controls the narrow pass used by the Shiroishi River and the old Ōshū Kaidō road. This strategic site in present-day Shibata was held from the early 16th century by Shiho Sadatomo, a Date retainer and ancestor of the Shibata clan, and then by various families serving the Sendai domain. It is above all associated with Harada Kai (Harada Munesuke), who lived here when the Kanbun incident broke out in 1671, the central episode of the Date family disturbances: he killed Date Muneshige during a hearing at the residence of the councillor Sakai Tadakiyo before dying himself, and his family was wiped out. The Shibata family then received Funaoka in 1681 and settled in the third enclosure. No buildings survive, but the hill is now a large municipal park, famous for its thousand or so cherry trees listed among Japan's 100 best cherry-blossom spots, for its 24-metre statue of Kannon and for the fir tree recalling Yamamoto Shūgorō's novel "Momi no ki wa nokotta".