Mito Castle, Japanese castle in Mito, Japan

Mito Castle is a hilltop castle site in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, built on a plateau north of Mito Station. Its compounds run from the Honmaru west to the Ninomaru and Sannomaru, divided by dry moats and earthen walls. The reconstructed Otemon gate has dark timber posts with metal studs and a hipped roof of grey-green tiles.

The fortress dates to the late Heian period, built in the 1190s by Baba Sukemoto of the Otsuke clan and long called Baba Castle. The Edo clan seized it in 1427, and Satake Yoshishige took it in 1594, renaming it Mito and laying out the connected compounds. In 1609 Tokugawa Yorifusa received it, founding the Mito Tokugawa line; the castle was abolished in 1871.

The castle was called Baba Castle until Satake Yoshinobu took it in 1594 and renamed it Mito. The Mito Tokugawa family, exempt from alternate attendance, rarely resided here, so the buildings stayed plain. The Sannomaru school Kodokan, opened in 1841 by Tokugawa Nariaki, still stands and is a Special Historic Site.

The castle site lies about eight minutes on foot north of Mito Station. The former Honmaru, now the grounds of Mito First High School, can be entered for viewing, but the school grounds of the former Ninomaru are closed apart from the roads crossing them. In the Sannomaru, Kodokan charges admission while the rest of the grounds are free.

The Kodokan school established in 1841 trained samurai sons in Confucian studies and martial arts and still stands as an educational site within the old boundaries. Some school fences and gates on the former grounds were built in traditional castle style and carry forward the architectural memory.