Minowa Castle

This vast castle has a little bit of everything for casual castle fans and castle mania people alike. There is a beautifully reconstructed gate and bridge as well as stone walls and extensive earthworks. The castle is so huge you can easily spend a half day here exploring all the baileys, trenches,

History

Nagano Narihisa established his base here around 1500 from which his family ruled for 4 generations until the castle fell to Takeda Shingen in 1566. After the fall of the Takeda, the castle was taken over by Oda Nobunaga in 1582 and ruled by Takigawa Kazumasa. Less than a month later, the castle was taken over by the Gohojo and was ruled by Hojo Ujikuni from Hachigata Castle. In 1590, after the fall of the Hojo, Tokugawa Ieyasu stationed Ii Naomasa here. Ii Naomasa undertook a large renovation of the castle and most of today's castle structure and remnants are thought to be from this period. In 1598, Ii Naomasa moved to Takasaki Castle and Minowa Castle was abandoned.

Field Notes

This vast castle has a little bit of everything for casual castle fans and castle mania people alike. There is a beautifully reconstructed gate and bridge as well as stone walls and extensive earthworks. The castle is so huge you can easily spend a half day here exploring all the baileys, trenches, former gates and bits of stone walls. The town has had a castle redevelopment project in progress for over ten years now and is finally nearing completion. They have rebuilt the large Umadashi Gate (2016) and now the bridge to the Honmaru (2022). Much attention is drawn to these two reconstructions, but even more has been done to improve the site that is easy to overlook. Trees have been cut, baileys cleared and some of the earthworks around the Honmaru and Umadashi have been restored. You can see other baileys that are in the process of being cleared or look like they will be cleared soon too. This will be an even more amazing site when the honmaru gate on the inner side of the bridge is completed (completion date: TBD). Construction work on this last part is scheduled to begin this fall (2022). When construction starts you will no longer be able to cross the bridge so if this interests you, do so while you can.

There are a couple different busses that will get you near the castle. The best one is less than a 5 min walk from the castle but these are rather few. Busses that stop about 15 mins walk away from the castle are more frequent so don't confine your search to just the nearest bus stop.

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Gallery

Castle Profile
English Name	Minowa Castle
Japanese Name	箕輪城
Founder	Nagano Narihisa
Year Founded	1500
Castle Type	Hilltop
Castle Condition	No main keep but other buildings
Designations	Top 100 Castles, National Historic Site
Historical Period	Pre Edo Period
Features	gates, bridges, trenches, stone walls
Visitor Information
Access	Takasaki Sta. (Takasaki Line), 40 min. bus, 15 min. walk
Hours	park, open any time
Time Required	180 mins
URL	Castle Website
Location	Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture
Coordinates	36.4049, 138.95083
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Admin
Added to Jcastle	2008
Contributor	Eric
Admin Year Visited	2008, 2022
Admin Visits	November 6, 2008; April 8, 2022
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