Tochigi Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Tochigi Castle (栃木城) stood in today's Jōnai-machi district, in the heart of the city of Tochigi, in the former province of Shimotsuke. It was built in 1591 by Minagawa Hiroteru, a local lord who was then leaving his hilltop stronghold of Minagawa to settle on the plain. Completed in about a year, it comprised a main enclosure, a second and a third enclosure and a granary court, with a perimeter estimated at nearly one kilometre. Hiroteru laid out a castle town that gave rise to the merchant city of Tochigi, which later prospered thanks to boat traffic on the Tomoe River. The stronghold had a very short life, however: in 1609 Tokugawa Ieyasu confiscated Hiroteru's domain and had the castle dismantled after nineteen years of existence. In the 18th century the enclosure briefly housed an administrative office (jinya) of the Ashikaga domain. Today a small public park preserves a section of earthen rampart and an L-shaped stretch of moat, protected as a historic site by the city since 1972, while the name of the district still recalls the former castle.