Okamoto Castle (Shimotsuke)

En un regard

Le château en bref

Okamoto Castle (岡本城), also called Okamoto Negoya Castle, stands at the locality of Negoya in the Naka-Okamoto district, in the north of the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. It is said to have been built shortly after 1337 by Okamoto Tomitaka, a member of the Haga clan, itself a vassal of the Utsunomiya house. Tomitaka died in 1351 at the battle of Sattayama and his son Masataka in 1363, ending this first line. The domain then passed to a branch of the Tamao clan, descended from the Shioya, one of whose members took the name Okamoto and settled in the castle; the family held it until the late 16th century. The castle was abandoned in 1597, after the dispossession of the Utsunomiya house, the Okamoto's overlords. Laid out on a so-called ladder plan, it occupied the northern tip of a plateau: the square main enclosure, protected by moats and earthen ramparts, remains well preserved, while the outer enclosures have almost disappeared under urban development. The city of Utsunomiya published an excavation report on the site in 2013.