Harima Shingu Station (Kishin Line), 10 min bus to Kohyama, 10 min walk
This is an intriguing site. First, it is not well known but has a tremendous amount of stonework remaining. It's also in an area rich with other quite high mountaintop castles. They could have built this castle on top of the mountain but chose a site closer to the bottom. Further, most of the stonework you see is not actually "castle" specifically but the terraced residences (yashiki) of retainers and samurai. The stone walls create a terraced village for living quarters and roads along the mountainside town. Even when you're not looking at stone wall remnants you are likely walking across stones from crumbled stone walls and pilings. The footing is actually poor in some places for all the small stones. The main bailey and second bailey are right at the highest point of the terraced village with additional high stone walls and a water moat carved from the bedrock to separate it from the rest of the town. Such terraced residences at the foot of the mountain with a castle at the peak are not a unique concept, but I have not seen this much stone work to support the terraces except at Azuchi castle of course. This would have been a really interesting place to visit in its prime. There is a well marked trail through the castle ruins but going off trail is easy and highly recommended to find a lot more of the interesting stonework. In early November, it was full of giant spider webs EVERYWHERE. I guess the site does not get many visitors. There were so many times when I was concentrating on taking photos that I backed into or walked through a spider web. I had to change lenses at one point because I got a piece of webbing stuck across my lens (thank goodness for UV protector filters and carrying an extra lens!). I was expecting Shelob to come bumbling out at some point. I also ran into a few snakes along the way. This place is like the Mirkwood of castles. This was my +1 castle after visiting Mikazuki Jin'ya. I was looking for something else interesting in the area and stumbled across this one in some materials from the Nishiharima Tourism Board that had a nice map and illustration of the site. It is a little challenging to get to however since there are few busses from Harima Shingu Station. Even with this many photos and 2.5 hours on site I did not see the whole site. I tried to get everywhere that was marked with stone walls on the map, but had to skip some to make the last bus before dark and before Shelob's minions came out. There are a couple more castles nearby that are high on my to do list too so I might make it back here again.
mountain, open any time; castle ruins behind Dasai Shrine
Kohyama Castle
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