Inawashiro Castle

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Fukushima

Set on a mound some thirty metres high in the centre of the town of Inawashiro, not far from the great lake of the same name, Inawashiro Castle is also known as Kamegajō, "the turtle castle". Old chronicles date its founding to 1191 and attribute it to Sahara Tsunetsura, whose line took the name Inawashiro, while the municipal history leans towards a construction after the Hōji battle of 1247. A cadet branch of the Ashina, the Inawashiro lived here for centuries, until the about-turn of Inawashiro Morikuni who, in 1589, went over to Date Masamune on the eve of the Battle of Suriagehara and hastened the fall of the Ashina. Passing next to the Gamō, the Uesugi and the Katō, the castle then received stone walls laid in the anōzumi technique. Under the Hoshina-Matsudaira, lords of Aizu, it was kept as an exception and guarded by a castellan who watched over the tomb of Hoshina Masayuki. In 1868, during the Boshin War, its defender set it on fire before falling back on Wakamatsu. The terraces, stone walls, earthen ramparts and dry moats survive in a park popular for its cherry trees.