Ōmori Castle (Fukushima)

Architecture, patrimoine et histoire · Préfecture de Fukushima

On a hill overlooking the south of Fukushima city, Ōmori Castle has given way to a park where some seven hundred cherry trees blossom. Its origins remain obscure: the records mention it only from the Sengoku period, when Date Sanemoto, third son of Date Tanemune, became its first attested lord. During the Tenbun-era civil war, the stronghold supported Tanemune's faction, then remained in Sanemoto's hands after 1548. In 1584 it passed to his son Date Shigezane, before being entrusted in 1586 to Katakura Kagetsuna, the loyal adviser of Date Masamune. The reorganisation of Tōhoku ordered by Hideyoshi in 1591 led to its abandonment in favour of Fukushima Castle. Brought back into service under the Uesugi, the castle was finally abandoned around 1644. The site occupies the tip of a hill rising to 147 metres, divided from north to south into three enclosures. A dry moat, an embankment and traces of moats survive, and excavations in 1993 yielded sixteenth-century Seto ceramic sherds.