Shakujii Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Tokyo

Shakujii Castle (石神井城) occupied a terrace overlooking Sanpōji Pond to the north and the Shakujii River valley to the south, in today's Nerima ward of Tokyo. It was the seat of the Toshima clan, a powerful warrior family that had dominated much of the western Musashi plain since the late Heian period. Fortified in the 15th century against the rising Ōgigayatsu Uesugi, it was drawn into Nagao Kageharu's revolt: in 1477, after the battle of Ekoda-Numabukuro, Ōta Dōkan, builder of the first Edo Castle, captured it, and the Toshima clan disappeared shortly afterwards. The castle was then abandoned. Its remains, within Tokyo's Shakujii Park, consist of earthen embankments and dry moats of the inner enclosure; excavations in 1998 and 2000 uncovered a moat about five metres deep and a small iron sword. Formerly a recognised Tokyo site, it was reclassified as a Tokyo Metropolitan Historic Site in 2011.