Kuwada

Kuwada lay in Tanba, northwest of Kyoto, where Kameyama became a new centre of military government in the late sixteenth century. Akechi Mitsuhide began building Tanba Kameyama Castle in the 1570s. Its development drew the surrounding district into the struggles that brought Tanba under the authority of the unifying warlords.

In 1610 a shogunal construction campaign transformed the castle, giving it a five-storey keep with a tiered tower design. Repairs followed during the Edo period, but the keep remained a feature of the castle town throughout that era. Kuwada’s landscape therefore included more than farming basins and wooded hills: a major fortified residence close to Kyoto became a lasting centre around which the town developed under early modern domain government.