Takai Castle (Hitachi)

En un regard

Le château en bref

Takai Castle is a medieval fortified site in the south of Ibaraki Prefecture, in the former Hitachi Province. Its remains lie in the Shimotakatsu district of Tsuchiura, right next to Tsukuba: they stretch from the Yasaka shrine to the vicinity of Shimotakatsu elementary school, on the edge of a plateau. The stronghold is assigned to the Nanboku-chō period, in the 14th century, when southern Hitachi was contested between supporters of the Northern and Southern Courts. The site has been heavily cut into by urban development and by the route of National Route 6, so its overall layout can no longer be read. A few stretches of earthen ramparts less than one metre high survive, along with a hōkyōin-tō stone pagoda and a mound identified, without certainty, as the Rokkitsuka, the "mound of the six horsemen". A torii and a sign now mark the castle's location, a discreet witness to the 14th-century struggles around Tsuchiura.