Hagi Castle

 

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

A few years earlier they had been ruling over most of the Chugoku region, but were on the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahra and so were stripped of most of their territory and confined to the western tip of Honshu.

They did not actually fight at Sekigahara, and it seems that Ieyasu betrayed them by breaking an agreement. Contrary to the prevalent notion that samurai were paragons of loyalty, betrayal was very, very common.

Removed from their main base at Hiroshima Castle, they asked to build their new base in either Hofu or Yamaguchi on the Inland Sea, but Ieyasu made them choose the remote area where Hagi now stands.

It was constructed mostly on the sandbar that connected Mount Shizuki with the delta of the Abu River.

Protected on 3 side by the sea, there were some fortifications around the base and on top of the mountain, but the main structures were built to the south.

A series of moats protected this side and the samurai residences formed the outer defences with other moats.

The main keep was 5 storeys and the base is clearly seen in these photos.

Like many of the castles built in the early Edo Period, Hagi Castle never came under any kind of attack.

Like many castles it was dismantled at the beginning of the Meiji Period.

There are a few gardens and teahouses inside the ruins,... click here to see some more photos...

While not soo much remains of Hagi Castle other than the stonework and moats, the opposite can be said for the castle town that grew up around the castle.

Because the railway ran around the town rather than through it, the old samurai and merchant quarters remain among the best-preserved castle towns in all of Japan.

The castle is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage site connected to Japan's early Industrialization.

I was in Hagi a few months ago, and even though it has a lot to see for the visitor, it was not at all busy and the polar opposite of "overtourism", due mostly, I suspect, to its remoteness and limited transportation options.

I will be posting more on Hagi, and I have already posted quite a bit.... clicking here will get you to those posts... they come up in reverse chronological order, so you will have to scroll down to find older posts....

The previous post in this series on day 29 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the mouth of the Hashimoto River, one side of the castles water frontage...

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 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.