Hagi Castle

Hagi Castle

Hagi Castle was built in 1604 as the new base for the Mori Clan.

Senshukaku Pond Garden

 

Senshukaku is a name given to the Daimyo gardens of the former palace in the ruins of Tokushima Castle.

While not a particularly large garden, it does consist of two quite distinct parts, a karesansui section and a pond section.

I covered the karesansui section in the previous post in this series.

Both gardens featured a lot of stone, specifically a type of stone called Awa Bluestone.

The castle was built in 1586, and the garden design is attributed to Ueda Soko, a famed warrior and tea master.

The pond is fed by the tidal river.

The name Senshukaku is a modern one, and it was the name of the lodgings built on the site for the Taishō Emperor when he visited as crown prince.

The named features within the pond garden are fairly typical..... a dry waterfall, a boat stone, etc

Some sections of the garden are reminiscent of the stone garden at Kokawadera Temple in Wakayama, also designed by Ueda Soko.

It is believed that Ueda Soko was a big influence on Mirei Shigemori

With several more good gardens in the vicinity, Tokushima is worth a visit for garden enthusiasts...

The previous post in this series was on the karesansui half of the garden.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.

Senshukaku Karesansui Garden

 

Senshukaku is one of the names of the former Omote Goten of Tokushima Castle.

It's not a particularly big garden, but it splits nicely into two halves: a karesansui garden and a pond garden.

This first post is just on the karesansui part. I will cover the pond garden next.

Stones and rocks are the neart of a Japanese garden. This is my opinion after viewing hindreds of gardens. The rocks are chosen and set first and the rest of the garden grows from that.

This is certainly obvious here in the gardens at the former Tokushima Castle.

One particular type of stone predominates, known as Awa Bluestone. Not a geologist but I believe it is a type of rock called greenschist in English.

Awa bluestone was used a lot by the greatest 20th-century Japanese gardener, Mirei Shigemori.

The garden was designed by Ueda Soko ( 1563-1650) a warlord as well as a garden designer, and was built around 1600.

He was also a tea master and founded his own school of tea ceremony.

Some of his other gardens include the Nishinomaru garden at Wakayama Castle, and one I posted about quite recently, the Shukkeien Garden in Hiroshima.

Perhaps the most famous site in the garden is the stone bridge made of a single ten meter long piece of bluestone.

Seen in photos 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, and 20.

The long piece of rock is actually split, according to legend, by Hachisuka Yoshishige, the first lord of the castle, and the person for whom the garden was built.

It is said he stamped upon it and it cracked.

The gardens are a designated National Scenic Spot.

The previous garden I posted on was the garden at Matsue History Museum.

If you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.

To Mihara Castle Ruins

 

There is not a lot left of Mihara Castle, but what is left is somewhat striking.

I arrived in Mihara at the end of day 12 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage and took a ferry from Ikuchijima Island after having visited temple number 11 Kojoji, with its marvellous 15 century National Treasure pagoda.

Mihara is quite a busy little port with numerous ferries servicing the islands of the Inland Sea and even across to Shikoku. There is also some shipbuilding.

The castle was built in 1567 and greatly expanded over the following decades. It was built on a couple of small islands in the mouth of the Nuta River. At high tide it appeared to be floating on the sea and was known as the "floating castle".

The base for the tenshu is pretty much all that remains now, and it was built during expansion in 1595, though no tenshu was built. It was a pretty large cattle measuring 1 kilometer by 600 meters and had 14 gates and 32 yagura.

It was the easternmost fortification for the Mori Clan and the important Sanyodo highway passed through the outer fortifications.

In the Edo Period it was controlled by the Asano Clan since 1619 and was a branch castle of the Hiroshima Domain.

In the early Meiji Period most of the buildings were dismantled and sold as lumber. In 1894 with the construction of Mihara Station much of the stonework was taken away and used in the construction of Itozaki Port. Land reclamation moved the seashore further away and the final straw was the expansion of Mihara Station for the Shinkansen in 1975.

The previous post in this series on the Chugoku Pilgrimage was Kojoji Temple and its ancient pagoda.