Ichijōdani Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Fukui

Ichijōdani Castle is not an isolated keep but a true fortified complex: the capital of the Asakura clan, which ruled Echizen Province for one hundred and three years. At the bottom of a narrow valley about three kilometres long, a branch of the Asuwa River south-east of present-day Fukui, the Asakura established their lordly residence in 1471, surrounded by samurai houses, temples and merchant quarters, closed to the north and south by two fortified gates and overlooked by a mountain castle perched more than four hundred metres above the valley. A refuge for scholars and craftsmen fleeing the turmoil in Kyoto, the town grew to over ten thousand inhabitants. In 1573 Oda Nobunaga defeated Asakura Yoshikage and put the city to the torch. Buried beneath rice fields, the site has been revealed by excavations carried out since 1967: a complete town plan, gardens, stone walls and more than one and a half million objects. Designated a Special Historic Site, it now offers a reconstructed street of samurai and merchant houses, four listed gardens and a prefectural museum devoted to the Asakura.