The next stop was a viewpoint for the Inner Moat.
The moat ahead is called uchibori, meaning “inner moat”. It was a transit facility for carrying goods transported by boats from Kyoto, Osaka or Nagasaki to Edo Castle during the Edo period (1603 - 1867). A warehouse for storing food called momigura (paddy warehouse) used to lie around the present Flower Garden (Ohanabatake) and the adjacent open space. There were also landing stairs for unloading goods built on the moat walls, which were built of kenchiishi, wedge-shaped stones used to build stone walls. In an excavation carried out during a restoration work in 2009, various kinds of ancient structural remnants of Edo period such as landing places which got buried in the present moat walls and some conduit-like wooden structures were discovered. Two flights of landing stairs for unloading goods were restored during the restoration work.
Ancient structural remnants of a landing place - photo taken during the excavation on the left and closeup from today on the right.
View of the moat from a little further along, showing the bridge to the flower garden and another set of landing steps