Futamata Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Shizuoka

Futamata Castle stood on a narrow hill at the confluence of the Tenryū and Futamata rivers, in Tenryū-ku (Hamamatsu), a strategic gateway between Tōtōmi Province and southern Shinano. Built around 1503 by the Imagawa clan and entrusted to their Matsui vassals, in the 1570s it became one of the most fiercely contested prizes between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Takeda Shingen: taken by the Takeda in 1572 after a one-month siege, it was recaptured by the Tokugawa in 1575 after six months of investment. In 1579, Ieyasu's eldest son, Matsudaira Nobuyasu, was confined there and forced to commit seppuku; his tomb is at the nearby Seiryū-ji temple. After 1590, the Horio remodelled the stronghold with stone walls and a keep, before it was abandoned in 1600. A stone keep base, fragments of ishigaki and deep dry moats survive. Together with neighbouring Tobayama Castle, built in 1572 by the besieging Tokugawa, the ruins have formed a National Historic Site since 2018; they are freely accessible and host a festival dedicated to mountain castles.