Hinoe Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Nagasaki

Standing on a hill about 80 metres high in the south of the Shimabara Peninsula, between the Arima and Ōte rivers, Hinoe Castle was the seat of the Arima clan for nearly four centuries. Founded in the early Kamakura period, it became in the Sengoku period the heart of a powerful domain, open to Portuguese trade through the nearby port of Kuchinotsu, and the centre of a town where the Jesuits established a seminary under the Christian daimyo Arima Harunobu. The site is a hill castle with stepped enclosures: the honmaru on the summit, the ni-no-maru to the east and the san-no-maru to the north-west. Excavations carried out from 1995 to 2000 revealed a large straight stone staircase, masonry showing foreign influence and gold-leaf roof tiles, evidence of an avant-garde building project linked to Toyotomi power. After the Arima left in 1614, Matsukura Shigemasa preferred to build Shimabara Castle and reused much of Hinoe's stone. Today stone walls on the bedrock, dry moats and a small shrine on the site of the keep remain.