Amagiri Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Kagawa

Amagiri Castle crowns Mount Amagiri, a summit of about 380 metres rising at the western edge of the Marugame plain, where the territories of Zentsūji, Mitoyo and Tadotsu meet. This mountain castle was the fortified refuge of the Kagawa clan, a powerful family of Sanuki Province and vassals of the Hosokawa: in peacetime the lords lived in Tadotsu, at the foot of the hills, and only climbed to the ridge when threatened. Tradition attributes its foundation to Kagawa Kagenori in 1364. In the 16th century the stronghold resisted the Miyoshi at the Battle of Zentsūji in 1558, before the Kagawa allied with Chōsokabe Motochika by adopting his son Chikakazu. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's conquest of Shikoku in 1585 led to the exile of the Kagawa to Tosa and the abandonment of the castle. Along the ridge survive some ten stepped terraces, transverse moats, fragments of stone walls and a well cut into the rock, although a quarry has eaten into the south-eastern slope. The site has been protected as a National Historic Site since 1990.