17.Kanayama Castle Part2

Features

Castle Ruins on Hiking Course

Today, the ruins of Kanayama Castle have been well developed by Ota City. The mountain, where the ruins were located, are covered by several hiking courses including the routes to the ruins, where you can see many people enjoying and relaxing on them. For history fans visiting the ruins, it may be better to climb Nishiyama (the Western Mountain) course from such as Historic Site Kanayama Castle Guidance Facility.

The map around the castle

Drivers can also go straight to the parking lot on the mountain through the Kanayama Drive Way, about 700m away from the top, around Nishijo or the Western Castle area. The Western Mountain hiking course also meets the area, so a tour to the ruins usually starts there.

Defense system to prevent enemies from attacking Castle easily

To go to the center of the ruins, you need to go on the original or recently developed route towards the east. You will find several ditches which were built for preventing enemies from attacking the castle easily.

In particular, the one in front of the Lookout Tower was built by digging bedrock deeply, which looks very impressive. In addition, double entrances behind the ditch are surrounded by restored stone walls, and you can enter them after going across the earthen bridge over the ditch.

The tower above the entrance was rebuilt as an observation platform, where you can see great views of the city area and mountains around. This area must have been a pivot point of the castle.

Restored Main Entrance with Stone Walls and Paving

Next comes the main portion of the castle, called Mijo, which is divided by the Large Ditch, the largest one in the castle, and a small reservoir being covered with stone mounds, called Tsuki-no-ike or the Moon Pond.

The map of the main portion of the castle

Over the pond, you will see the outstanding Main Entrance in a valley, which are surrounded by great several tiered stone walls on both sides. The entrance also has stone paving with drainage ditches, so it looks like a European castle. These stone walls were recently restored by the officials based on the achievements of the excavations and studies, partially using the original stones.

They were thought to be completed by the Hojo Clan, the final owner of the castle. This is because they were piled in a method called Agodome style (in which all the stones in the bottom row are layered heavily to prevent the walls from collapsing) which the clan used in Hachioji Castle, their other branch castle. However, the excavation team also found that the stone walls were improved many times, so other clans might have started to build them.

To be continued in “Kanayama Castle Part3”
Back to “Kanayama Castle Part1”