The Town and Its Setting
Kururi is a historic castle town in Kimitsu City, Chiba Prefecture, set in the inland hills of the Boso Peninsula. Its surroundings of low hills, rice paddies, and secondary woodland give the area a distinctly rural atmosphere. Through the Edo period Kururi served as the seat of the Kururi domain, and the old castle-town street plan is still faintly legible in the layout of the town below the castle hill. For all that history, Kururi is said to draw far fewer visitors than the busier corners of Chiba, its scenery quiet farmland rather than tourist country.
Kururi Castle and Its Museum
During the Sengoku period Kururi Castle was the principal base of the Satomi clan. In the Edo period it passed to a succession of Tokugawa-affiliated lords, including the Tsuchiya and Kuroda families, and it stayed in use until the Meiji Restoration. A replica castle tower and a small history museum now stand on the hilltop remains of Kururi Castle, counted among the notable castles of the historic Kazusa region, an old provincial name for this part of Chiba. The castle-site museum displays suits of armour, swords, and other artefacts tied to the castle and the local history of the Kururi area. The wooded hilltop grounds are said to remain pleasant to wander, still holding earthworks and other traces of the original mountain-castle layout in the surrounding national forest.
The Waters of Kururi
Artesian wells are scattered through Kururi town and its immediate surroundings, and many of them still flow and serve as public drinking water. The town's well water has been named among Japan's Heisei Meisui Hyakusen, a national listing of noted waters of the Heisei era. A large shallow well known as the Oido was dug during the early Edo period as the town's sole water source. The Kazusabori well-drilling method, developed in the Kimitsu area with lightweight bamboo tools to reach deep self-flowing aquifers, later spread across Japan and is still used in overseas water-development projects in Asia and Africa.
Sake and a Small Distillery
Sudo Honke, a sake brewery that has made Japanese rice wine in Kururi since the Meiji era, went on to launch the first whiskey made in Chiba Prefecture. On the former site of a public medicinal herb garden, a small distillery is said to make handcrafted brandies and liqueurs from herbs and fruit grown on its own grounds.
A Circuit Around the Town
A compact circuit through the town, according to local accounts, ties together the castle hill, Kururi Shrine, the Takasawa famous-water well, and the Yoshizaki sake brewery within short distances of one another.
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