Kururi Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

On a wooded ridge in the Obitsu valley, at around 140 metres above sea level, Kururi bears the nickname “castle of rain”, 雨城, which a legend explains by repeated downpours during its construction and which the hill's frequent fog still makes apt. Its interest lies in the meeting of two very different histories. The first is that of the Sengoku period: the Satomi, setting out from Awa, made it, according to the commonly cited but contested date of 1535, the base for their war against the Hōjō, and tabi-mag reports that Satomi Yoshitaka's appeal to Uesugi Kenshin in 1560 weighed in the latter's entry into the Kantō. The second is that of a small Edo-period domain where, under the Tsuchiya, a child destined for a great career, Arai Hakuseki, served the lord Tsuchiya Toshinao; his statue stands watch before the museum. After the confiscation of 1679 the castle fell dormant, then revived with the Kuroda from 1742, a longevity the local museum particularly highlights. Nothing in the white keep completed in 1978 should be taken for an original monument: this concrete building inspired by Hamamatsu stands on the honmaru beside the very real remains of the earthworks. Since an earthquake on 11 May 2023 its interior has remained closed, with the neighbouring museum on the ninomaru welcoming visitors and displaying, among other things, the Kazusa-bori drilling tools.