Himeji Castle: How the White Castle Came to Be

Himeji Castle rises over the city of Himeji in western Hyōgo. Its white walls earned it another name, Shirasagi-jō, the "White Heron Castle." The buildings that stand today were raised by the lord Ikeda Terumasa between 1601 and 1609.

In December 1993 the castle was inscribed on the World Heritage List. Himeji City notes that it and Hōryūji in Nara were Japan's first World Cultural Heritage sites. This article follows how a hilltop stronghold became the white castle that visitors see, and how it has been kept standing for four centuries.

A stronghold on Himeyama

The castle stands on two low hills, Himeyama and Sagiyama. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the hills are steep on the north, east, and west and gentler to the south, with a shallow valley between them.

By the sixteenth century the castle was in the hands of the Kuroda family. The museum records that Kuroda Shigetaka and his son Mototaka remodelled it in 1561. In 1580 Kuroda Yoshitaka handed the castle to Hashiba Hideyoshi, later known as Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Hideyoshi built a keep of three storeys. Himeji City dates it to 1580, completed the following year, while the museum places its building in 1581.

Old stones were reused in the walls. The museum notes that a stone pagoda carved from a single stone and dated 1535 had been used in the fill behind Hideyoshi's keep. Pieces of ancient stone coffins and many religious stone monuments were also reused as building stone.

One stone has a story of its own. Below the Inui small keep, half of an old millstone is set into the wall. It is called Uba-ga-ishi, the "old woman's stone," and the museum and the city relate a tradition that a poor old woman gave it when Hideyoshi was short of stone.

Ikeda Terumasa's great rebuilding

In 1600 Ikeda Terumasa became lord of Himeji. The museum notes that he was given all of Harima province, assessed at more than 520,000 koku, and that he was a son-in-law of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Terumasa began rebuilding the castle in 1601. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, he did away with the older castle and built a new one. In 1609 the great keep was finished.

The heart of the castle is a five-storey main keep joined to three smaller keeps of three storeys by connecting turrets. Inside, the main keep has seven levels, counting a basement. Two great wooden pillars, one in the east and one in the west, run through its centre up to the floor of the top storey.

Around the keeps, the main bailey sits at the top of Himeyama, with the West Bailey on high ground on Sagiyama. The inner moat begins at the northeast foot of the main bailey and winds around the inner castle in a spiral. Beyond lay the samurai district, and outside that the townspeople's quarter.

The castle did not end with Terumasa. In 1617 Honda Tadamasa became lord and added the Sannomaru, the West Bailey, and other parts. Himeji City says that the castle took on its full present form in that year.

The museum adds that the West Bailey was laid out for Tadamasa's son Tadatoki and his wife Senhime, a daughter of Tokugawa Hidetada.

Built to keep people out

Although the castle looks elegant, it was designed for defense. The museum explains that anyone heading for the keep had to pass a long series of gates. After the main Hishi Gate, the gates are named in the order of the old Japanese syllabary: i, ro, ha, and so on.

The gates differ in form. One passes through a tunnel in a stone wall. Another could be filled with earth in an emergency.

Thick earthen walls with tile roofs bend the approach and narrow the space in front of the gates. They are pierced with loopholes: round, triangular, and square ones for guns, and oblong ones for bows. At Himeji, the museum notes, gun loopholes outnumber bow loopholes two to one.

Openings called ishi-otoshi jut out above corners of the stone walls. One is hidden under the large lattice window of the main keep, aimed at anyone directly below the stone wall.

Over the centuries, lords of 13 families and 48 generations held the castle.

Why the castle is white

The white comes from plaster. The Agency for Cultural Affairs explains that the castle's other name, White Heron Castle, comes from its graceful look, with walls finished all in white.

Plaster covers more than the walls. The museum points out that plaster is carefully applied along the joints of the roof tiles, which makes the buildings look even brighter. Plastered earthen walls are common in the castle; a rammed-earth wall inside one gate is especially rare.

White plaster does not stay white on its own. A Himeji City text says that the Shōwa restoration completed in 1964 re-plastered the walls, but by the early 2000s they had turned gray again.

Keeping the castle standing

Repairs began long before modern times. The museum records that in 1656 the lord Sakakibara Tadatsugu repaired the bases of the two great pillars. In 1743 Matsudaira Akinori added braces and posts, and the keep stopped tilting.

Himeji City explains that the castle really did lean to the southeast. Dismantling repairs confirmed this and showed that the cause was the sinking of the stone walls at the east and southeast corners.

After the fall of the shogunate, the castle passed to the state in 1869. In 1873 it was one of 58 castles kept under the Army Ministry. In 1878 Colonel Nakamura Shigetō asked for money to preserve Himeji and Nagoya castles, and funds for upkeep followed.

A major repair was carried out in 1910 and finished the next year. In 1912 the area within the main and second baileys was lent to Himeji City and opened to the public.

Protection by law followed. The castle grounds became a Historic Site in 1928, and the keeps were named National Treasures in 1931. The keeps were designated again under the new law in 1951, and the grounds became a Special Historic Site in 1956.

In 1956 the great Shōwa repair began, paid for by the national government. The museum describes how the whole keep was taken apart, a concrete foundation laid, and the keep put back together with new timber added. A new west pillar of cypress was brought in in 1959, and the work was completed in 1964.

The most recent repair, the Heisei repair, ran from 2009 to 2015. According to the Himeji City text, the walls and roofs of the main keep were replastered with hemp fiber, lime, and seaweed paste. All the roof tiles were taken off and checked, about 80 percent were reused, and the structure was reinforced against earthquakes.

A World Heritage castle

Himeji City explains why the castle was inscribed in 1993. Its beauty places it at the summit of Japan's wooden architecture, and its keeps, turrets, gates, walls, stone walls, and moats survive from the peak period of castle building in the early seventeenth century. Together they show the defensive design of the Japanese castle better than any other.

Only 12 original keeps survive in Japan, the museum notes, and Himeji is one of them. A Himeji City text adds that the castle keeps more of its original buildings than any other castle in Japan. The museum counts 15 gates, 32 walls, and 27 turrets among its designated cultural properties.

Places to visit

Himeji City is the designated managing body of the castle site. Inside, visitors can climb the main keep and see the great pillars, and walk past the lettered gates, loopholed walls, and the Uba-ga-ishi stone. Check opening times and tickets on the castle's official website.

The Special Historic Site covers roughly the area within the middle moat, including the old samurai district around the castle. Most of its moats, earthen ramparts, and stone walls keep their original form.

The Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of History opened within the castle site in 1983. Its castle gallery displays the base of the keep's east pillar and a model of the keep's interior. Check its official website before visiting.