Kasama Castle

Kasama Castle 笠間城
Kasama, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
Reconstructed Hachimandai Yagura of Kasama Castle
Coordinates	Coordinates: 36°22′56.95″N 140°16′2.93″E / 36.3824861°N 140.2674806°E / 36.3824861; 140.2674806
Type	mountain-style Japanese castle
Site information
Open to the public	yes
Site history
Built	1219
Built by	Kasama Tomonari
In use	Edo period
Demolished	1868

Kasama Castle (笠間城, Kasama-jō) is a Japanese castle located in Kasama, central Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. At the end of the Edo period, Kasama Castle was home to a junior branch of Makino clan, daimyō of Kasama Domain, but castle and domain went through a large number of changes in clans during the early Edo period.

In 1205, a retainer of Utsunomiya Yoritsuna, Shioya Tomonari, moved to this area and changed his name to “Kasama”. The original Kasama Castle was completed in 1235, but little is known of the Kasama clan during the Kamakura period and subsequent Muromachi period. However, in 1591, Kasama Tsunaie refused the summons of his overlord, the Utsunomiya, to join his forces against the Late Hōjō clan at the Battle of Odawara and was dispossessed of his castle. A retainer of the Utsunomiya, Tamanyu Katsumasa initially replaced the Kasama, but in 1598 the castle was taken by Gamo Satonari as part of a 30,000 koku domain. He made many modifications to modernize its layout. Following the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu assigned the castle to Matsudaira Yasushige in 1601.

As the headquarters of Kasama Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate, the castle was passed to the Ogasawara clan, Toda-Matsudaira clan, Nagai clan, Asano clan, Inoue clan, Honjo clan, Inoue clan (again), before coming into the hands of the Makino clan in 1747, who subsequently remained in residence at Kasama until the Meiji Restoration.