Yokosuka Castle (Tōtōmi)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Shizuoka

In Ōsuka, in southern Kakegawa, Yokosuka Castle was built from 1578 by Ōsuga Yasutaka on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was part of a network of forts intended to cut off supplies to Takatenjin Castle, held by Takeda Katsuyori, and starve its garrison. After Takatenjin fell in 1581, Yokosuka became the region's administrative centre and then the seat of a feudal domain that passed between several fudai families before being held by the Nishio clan from 1682 until the Meiji Restoration. In the early Edo period the complex was enlarged and given moats connected to the sea and a four-storey keep. Its distinctive feature is a facing of rounded boulders carried from the Tenryū River rather than cut stone. The Hōei earthquake of 1707 uplifted the coastline and ruined the harbour; the buildings were dismantled in 1871. The site, now a park, preserves earthen ramparts, moats and the restored boulder walls; one gate, the Akezu-mon, was re-erected at Senyō-ji temple.