Ogurayama Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Hiroshima

Ogurayama Castle crowns Mount Ogura (460 m) at Shinjō, in the town of Kitahiroshima. For more than a century it was the seat of the Kikkawa clan, nicknamed the "Demon Kikkawa" (Oni-Kikkawa) for its valour in the Ōnin War. According to Hiroshima Prefecture, it was Kikkawa Tsuneharu, then based in Iwami Province, who in the first half of the 15th century moved the family residence to Shinjō and made this summit his main castle, replacing the earlier seat of Surugamaru. The fortress uses the summit and three radiating ridges, about 80 m above the valley: the main, second and third enclosures form separate units divided by deep trenches (horikiri). No building survives, but the earthworks are numerous and easy to read. Excavations carried out by the prefecture from 1999 preceded the site's conversion into a historical park open to the public. Ogurayama is one of the nine "Kikkawa clan castle and residence sites" designated a National Historic Site, alongside Surugamaru, Hiyama Castle and Kikkawa Motoharu's residence.