11 New Castles around Kyoto

This update brings 11 new castles, mostly mountain castles, from Kyoto and a minor update to Sonobe Castle (already well documented by others!). Similar to Tokyo and Osaka, Kyoto is not just the city of Kyoto but it is also a prefecture that is much larger than the city itself with many othe

11 New Castles around Kyoto

2024/10/03

This update brings 11 new castles, mostly mountain castles, from Kyoto and a minor update to Sonobe Castle (already well documented by others!). Similar to Tokyo and Osaka, Kyoto is not just the city of Kyoto but it is also a prefecture that is much larger than the city itself with many other cities and municipalities. The area is very rich in castles and castle ruins from the well known Kameyama Castle and Fukuchiyama Castle to lesser known but brilliant castle sites like Shuzan Castle and Yagi Castle. Many of these castles were critical to the early campaigns of Nobunaga to move West of Kyoto as championed by Akechi Mitsuhide to secure a base around Kyoto and to pacify the Tanba Region.

A few years ago Kyoto started the "Another Kyoto" tourism campaign, part of which is a castle theme for the "Woodland Kyoto" area. This update brings 3 more of those castles to the site. Many of them are in remote or difficult to reach locations by public transportation so I can only do 1 in a day but when I visit them I usually pick up some other nearby castle(s) along the way. Recently added Kanbayashi Castle and Yamaga Jin'ya are part of this campaign too. Awhile back I added a little section to my Castles of Kyoto page to keep track of these sites with some more information and I've been slowly adding links to the recommended castles as I visit them. Visit the Castles of Kyoto page for more details.

Finally, I tried something new with a few castles here. I put a small version of the castle map in the notes section. It will appear above the map with pinned photos and below the description which I typically put in the "Visit Notes" section so it might help to better understand the description and castle as a whole. If this is useful I may try to make this more common, but only if there is a value added GOOD map to use (good map from a signboard or other copyright free source).

 

Habu Castle / 埴生城

This is a classically designed castle with a fortified residence (yakata) at the base of the mountain and a mountain redoubt (tsume-no-shiro) on the mountain behind it. Most of the attention for this castle is paid to the mountaintop part, but don't overlook the yakata area around the base. The bus from Kameoka Station to Sonobe Station through the mountains stops very close to the castle site. There are few busses each day so depending on what time you get to the area it may be easier to start from one or the other station. I left early in the morning taking the bus from Kameoka but returned via Sonobe. Along the same bus route, you can also access Shishiudo Yakata and Kannosan Castle among others in this history rich area.

 

Inokura Castle / 猪倉城

First, I walked here from Kannosan Castle. The mountain is not high, but finding the gate in the fence around the castle was a bit tricky. Once inside, there is no trail nor signs so I just looked about until I found what looked like a tatebori. A quick scramble up the tatebori and then crawl over the embankment will not only get you into the castle but give you the feel of what an attacker might experience in assailing the castle, except for the hail of arrows that is.

This was a fantastic little castle to visit and the kind of thing I find to be a lot of fun even if the pictures don't do it justice. The top of the hill/mountain is heavily wooded but all the leaves had fallen by this time of the year. Some of the hori/trenches had leaves piled up to my knees. What made it so fun is that for a relatively undocumented site, it is very well preserved. You can easily see the rounded earthen embankments, koguchi entrances and trenches. The south side has a well preserved embankment which drops down to a trench and another embankment making a nice fortification. Interestingly enough, the north side does not have as well developed defenses so you might assume the builder expected any attack to come from the north.

Map Courtesy of Kyoto Pref. Board of Education.
Not to be used without permission.

 

Kaguraoka Castle / 神楽岡城　

There are no clear ruins for this site but it has not been well studied either. It is one I'm asked about occasionally by castle visitors to Kyoto who find it on maps, so I decided to check it out one afternoon this spring. It was just happenstance that I was in the area so I didn't even have my good camera with me. The castle sat at the endpoint of the mountain known as Yoshida-yama at the current site of the Munetada Shrine, but it may have extended as far as the Yoshida Shrine. It is one of the few high elevetion points this close tothe city center which made it a strategic and desirable location for many. The road behind the Munetada Shrine clearly goes straight up one side across the top and down the other. There are no other similar roads on Yoshida-yama and it is thought to have been a horikiri type trench separating the central part of the castle from the rest of the mountain.

 

Kannosan Castle / 神尾山城

The terraced baileys along the ridge line have been recently cleared and are really fantastic. You can get a clear view down the ridge of multiple levels and the trenches and embankments of each. At the top of the mountain the ruins kind of fade out and are hard to find. I ran into another castle explorer and we searched the woods looking for the supposed unejo tatebori, but could find no signs of them. They may be very slight today and mostly filled in with leaves and detritus. The gentleman was also kind enough to give me a ride back to the bus stop from the temple.

This castle is a long uphill walk from the bus stop. For better or worse, it is along a paved road but sometimes I think walking in the woods is easier. If you had a car it would be easy to drive up to the Kinrinji Temple which is at the entrance to the castle. You may see Google Maps and other places mistakenly call this Kamiosan Castle, but all the Japanese materials I've seen call it Kannosan Castle.

 

Kaseyama Castle / 鹿背山城

This may not be the biggest yamajiro (mountaintop castle) ruin in the Kansai Region, but it is one with many typical defensive features found in a late Sengoku Period yamashiro. To get to Kaseyama Castle take the local mini-bus from JR Kizu Station to Kaseyama, the last stop. If you want to do the castle ruin quickly, you can follow the signs for the main course in about 1.5 hours from the trailhead. If you want to see everything listed on the detailed black and white map (Japanese only) and follow all the "sub courses" you should factor in around 2.5 hours, depending on how often you stop for photos. (RaymondW)

At the end of 2023 I had an extra vacation day to burn or I'd lose it so without much planning I finally decided to make a quick trip down to Kaseyama Castle which had been on my radar for some time. This castle vastly exceeded expectations and I spent most of the day wandering the trails and trying to get to every bailey, horikiri and tatebori on site. I wish I had gone sooner. This was the perfect way to round out 2023 castling. It's a bit hard to see in the photos and map but for a small footprint at the top of the mountain the stepped baileys going down each ridge are really brilliant. The relatively unknown unejo tatebori (multiple vertical trenches in a row) are spectacular and should be more recognized by castle fans. The castle is extremely well signposted for a mountaintop castle and trails even to the more remote parts of the castle are well maintained. (Eric)

 

Kizu Castle / 木津城

Due to poor bus timings, I ended up walking from Kaseyama Castle back to Kizu Station, but I was able to turn this into an advantage and drop by Kizu Castle along the way. I did not expect anything to be here but the central bailey was surprisingly well preserved. There is really just the one main bailey with earthen embankments around it. Along each ridge radiating out from here there is a small lookout which is further protected by trenches and embankments. These are mostly overgrown or eroded away. Judging by the history below you can see why they would have needed lookouts in every direction!

 

Koide Yakata (Tanba) / 小出館

This castle is located about 150m from Shishiudo Yakata. It is basically one large bailey with earthen ramparts and two distinct koguchi entrances. It is very nicely preserved and well worth the visit along with Shishiudo Yakata.

 

Minami Hatta Castle / 南八田城

This is not something I would typically go out of my way to visit, but if you are in the area it is worth the quick hike up the hillside behind the highway to get to the castle ruins. I walked here from Habu Castle since I had well over an hour to the next bus and then caught the bus from the Hatta Bus Stop right in front of the castle ruins instead.

 

Shishiudo Castle / 宍人城

It takes some imagination and a good map to see the castle in your mind, but the satellite radar image below shows it best. The mountaintop castle itself is very simple. It is mostly one main bailey along the ridge line with a couple smaller baileys and trenches on each end and a wide bailey along one side. The south side is particularly steep and has a wall of bedrock and boulders protecting it. The side bailey (obi kuruwa) is along the north side adding some extra protection on the mildly weaker side.

There are very few castles that I am not keen to visit again, but the is probably one of them. There are no trails nor signs to this castle nor at the castle. There are no signs that people had even travelled the paths to get to the castle recently, not to mention the fact it's only briefly mentioned in a few sources. Based on sparse information from a couple other stalwart castle travellers (see links to Jokaku Horoki and Yamajiro Sanka - who also had been putting this one off for some time as being chellenging), a good map, and some good shoes and a trekking pole I set out to find this mountaintop fortification. On paper it looks easier than it is!

My first attempt took me to what ended up being a dead end, or at least the wrong direction. I think I misread the map. My second attempt got me very close but the last stretch seemed too difficult/risky to scale. My third attempt went farther up the valley where I followed a kind of ridge to the top slowly levering myself with the trekking pole and grabbing/pulling trees and branches to get up the side. This landed me a bit west of the castle along the top ridge of the mountain and I just followed it back to the castle itself. On the return trip, I kind of lost the way and probably didn't follow the same route back far enough. I more or less ended up slip sliding down a kind of gully or water channel back to the bottom. It was dry since there had not been rain for some time and was not so bad. Maybe I could remember enough to do it right if I ever go back but I'm not too anxious to make the climb for such few remnants again.

There is a lot of mislabeling of Shishiudo Castle and Shishiudo Yakata depending on whether people are aware of the mountaintop castle or not. Especially with the Another Kyoto tourism campaign that calls the lower castle Shishiudo Castle but does not mention the mountaintop castle and their description of an "untouched mountain castle" clearly refers to this mountaintop castle, not the yakata. The Kyoto Castle survey clearly splits these two and calls the lower castle as Shishiudo Yakata (or Kobatake Kyokan) and the mountain Castle as Shishiudo Castle. I follow this official survey for most things relating to Kyoto castles. If you've ended up on this page looking for the photos of the Shishiudo Castle that was introduced at the Osaka Castle Festival or through the Another Kyoto/Woodland Kyoto tourism campaigns, please see Shishiudo Yakata.

Map Courtesy of Kyoto Pref. Board of Education.
Not to be used without permission.

 

Shishiudo Yakata / 宍人館

For something called a "yakata" or fortified residence, the scale of this castle ruin is astonishing with features of more advanced castles and mountaintop castles. It is built nearly on a slightly elevated flattened area from the main agricultural area of the valley below. There are three large baileys of a scale you more often seen in smaller Edo Period castles with trenches dividing each and earthen embankments surrounding them. The largest main bailey may have been later modified for a vegetable field removing the embankment and trench that divided it across the middle in parallel with the two baileys across the deeper trench. The two baileys on the north side may have also been residences for vassals.

Compare this with the Koide Yakata about 150m away across the gulley on the next rise over. Even though the Koide Yakata is at a higher elevation, the set looks much more like the Koide Yakata was a fortified residence matched to this formal castle. The Koide Yakata was in fact a much later construction for the Koide Clan while they built Sonobe Jin'ya, see Koide Yakata for more details.

Taken as a pair, the Shishiudo Yakata and Koide Yakata are highly recommended for castle fans and fairly easy to get to along the bus line between Kameoka and Sonobe. You could easily visit this site along with Habu Castle and Sonobe Castle among other nearby options in a single day.

 

Sonobe Castle / 園部城

Sonobejō has three original structures intact, dating to the very end of the Edo Period. They are a gatehouse, guardhouse and turret on site. The Taiko Turret also survives, but has been relocated to the Anraku Temple. A modern "cultural hall" has been built nearby the castle. It is a castle-inspired structure but has a glass atrium built into the mock ramparts, so I think it's pretty absurd. Profile by ART, most photos by RonS. I visited this in the end of 2023. The site has been well documented already but I can add a few new photos and tidbits. At the top of Mt Komugiyama, behind the castle, once stood a large 3 story yagura, but nothing remains today. It was one of the last true castle structures built (1867) in the Edo Period. There is nothing to see there today but it should be a part of exploring the castle. If you look around the park and museum there are many big boulders and some stonework, but as far as I can tell they are not related to the castle. There is however a bit of stonework across the street that was the foundation of a samurai residence (karo yashiki). It seems there is some original stonework over by the courthouse too but I missed that. The large "moat" looking area with the pool in front of the musuem is not the actual size nor depth of the original moat but the pool actually lines up along where the water moat once was! The fake castle keep looking building is a local history museum. The structure is often ridiculed since Sonobe Castle had no such main keep, but the inside is a very nice museum. I do not get the impression they are trying to promote the museum building as a "castle" or mock castle, it's just the design. Inside the museum, there is a lot of castle related information, not just Sonobe Castle, but covering the wider region and some of the mountain castles I previously posted too. It was also a great place to spend some time and wait out the rain. -JCastle

 

Tenjinyama Castle (Tanba) / 天神山城

Surprisingly, I had a little energy left in the tank and lots of time before the next bus after tackling Shishiudo Castle so I walked the nearly 2km over to this small castle to visit it before grabbing a different bus route back to Sonobe Station. For such a small satellite fortification the castle was much better than I expected and a worthy way to spend some extra time.

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