Tatsuoka Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

In the south of the city of Saku, on the plain of the Taguchi district, Tatsuoka Castle traces a five-pointed star on the ground: together with the Goryōkaku in Hakodate, it is one of only two bastioned fortifications of this type in Japan, hence its nickname “Tatsuoka Goryōkaku”. It was commissioned by Matsudaira Norikata, lord of the Okutono domain, most of whose lands lay in Shinano Province. A scholar and senior military official of the shogunate, open to French methods, he decided in 1863 to move his seat there; the works, carried out from 1864 to 1867, cost about 40,000 ryō. For lack of funds and because of its status as a jin'ya, the lord's residence had neither a keep nor defence in depth, and only one battery was armed with cannon. After the abolition of the domains the buildings were demolished in 1872, but the star-shaped stone walls and part of the water-filled moat survive, as does the former lord's kitchen. A school moved into the enclosure in 1875; Taguchi Elementary School operated there until its closure in 2023. Designated a National Historic Site in 1934 and listed in 2017 among the “Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles”, the site has a free visitor centre presenting its history.