Kawagoe Castle

Kawagoe Castle in Saitama Prefecture preserves one of Japan's few surviving honmaru goten, the inner residential hall of a daimyo seat. Ota Dokan and his father Ota Doshin built the complex in 1457 to guard the Edo plain against the southern Edo Castle. During the Edo period Kawagoe served as a strategic northern outpost; the Matsui fudai-daimyo were its last lords. The honmaru palace visitors enter today dates from 1848 and, alongside Kochi, is the only such hall preserved in original form. You step through the genkan into tatami audience rooms with exposed beams and sliding doors; an Edo-period pond garden survives outside. The castle walls themselves have largely vanished, but the palace conveys the sober dignity of samurai administrative architecture.