Yato Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Yamanashi

Set at about 850 metres above sea level on a spur of the southern foothills of the Yatsugatake range, Yato Castle occupies an isolated hill in the Ōizumi district of Hokuto, between two streams flowing along its eastern and western flanks. Tradition holds that it was the residence of Minamoto no Kiyomitsu, known as Henmi Kiyomitsu, a member of the Kai-Genji branch of the Minamoto who settled in Kai Province at the end of the Heian period; his descendants gave rise to the Takeda clan, to which Takeda Shingen would belong. The site is a mountain castle without masonry: terraced ring-shaped enclosures, earthen ramparts and dry moats surround a summit platform measuring about 90 by 60 metres. Most of the works visible today date from the late sixteenth century, when Hōjō troops from Odawara reoccupied the hill during the Tenshō-Jingo conflict of 1582. Excavations by the University of Yamanashi uncovered building foundations as well as ceramics and coins. Designated a National Historic Site in 1993, the site is now a landscaped park planted with several hundred cherry trees, offering views of Yatsugatake, Mount Fuji and the Southern Alps.