Hekitani Castle: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:47, 29 June 2024

This is a marvelous earthworks castle with unejotatebori (consecutive vertical trenches) surrounding the main bailey. This is one of those rare features that many castle people get excited about when it is well preserved and Hekitani certainly is. This site should be more well known than what it is

History

The history of Hekitani castle is not well understood. It is clearly a well designed and fortified castle along a key road between Tanba and Kyoto. Given the relative position here and in relation to Kanbayashi Castle it may have been a satellite castle intended to watch over this key road. However, the unejotatebori design is clearly a later Sengoku Period construction. At this time, the region would have likely been under the control of Akechi Mitsuhide so Mitsuhide may have reinforced an existing castle for the Tanba campaigns. ON the other hand, unejotateboru is not a common type of defense for Mitsuhide castles either.

Field Notes

This is a marvelous earthworks castle with unejotatebori (consecutive vertical trenches) surrounding the main bailey. This is one of those rare features that many castle people get excited about when it is well preserved and Hekitani certainly is. This site should be more well known than what it is but it's also not the easiest one to get to. Jokaku Horoki has a very nicely drawn map that illustrates this very well. https://www.hb.pei.jp/shiro/tanba/hekitani-naka-jyo/m_nawabarizu.jpg

There are no signs for this castle but I figured out roughly where it should be. I was standing at the "left" side of the temple, from which another blogger supposedly scaled the steep hillside, looking at the ridge up above thinking if this was really the best way or was it worth the effort, when I heard someone shouting from over at the other side of the temple. It was a woman I had passed on the stairs to the temple earlier. At first I thought "oh no, they don't want me fooling around here or going up to the castle. I walked all this way for nothing!". So I walked over to the woman who was shouting something and what she actually said was "Are you looking for the castle?". When I shyly replied "yes", she proceeded to give me better directions how to more easily go around the side of the temple, take the pathway up to the cemetary, and on the other side you will see an 'easier' route up the ridge top. Once up there it will be easy going to the castle. She may have been worried and waited for me to come down... 90 mins later and said "you were up there a long time! I thought I'd have to come looking for you hahahaEric (Admin) (talk)!" This was certainly one of those "only in Japan" moments!

For some absurd reason, one well known castle explorer has split this into three sites and many who have followed in his footsteps have done the same, but it's completely unnatural. They are barely 100m apart on the same ridge. The first two "castles" as you go up the ridge could in no way stand as independent fortifications, are not even separate peaks, and have no historical basis to be treated as anything less than one. They are just lower demaru type baileys or maybe guard posts of the same castle. They are also not separated by the Kyoto Castle Survey nor the Jokaku Taikei (encyclopedia of Japanese castles). This is one of the key points to actually visiting castles yourself. Think for yourself, don't copy.

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Gallery

Take these stairs

Castle Profile
English Name	Hekitani Castle
Japanese Name	日置谷城
Founder
Year Founded
Castle Type	Mountaintop
Castle Condition	Ruins only
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Features	trenches
Visitor Information
Access
Hours
Time Required
Location	Ayabe, Kyoto
Coordinates	35.36722, 135.4091
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Admin
Added to Jcastle	2024
Contributor	Eric
Admin Year Visited	2024
Admin Visits	April 14, 2024

3.00

(one vote)

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 |AddedJcastle=2024
 |Visits=April 14, 2024
+|GPSLocation=35.36722, 135.4091
 |Contributor=Eric
 }}