//
Photo: Dot Potter, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Built as part of Edward I's 13th-century campaigns against the Welsh. The castle's finest feature is its striking triple-towered Great Gatehouse bearing the unmistakable stamp of Master James of St George, the architectural genius responsible for all of Edward's major North Wales castles. Good for ghost hunters, as the castle is reputed to be haunted!
Denbigh Castle and town walls were built to control the lordship of Denbigh after the Conquest of Wales by Edward I of England in 1282. The lands were granted to Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who began to build a new walled town, colonised by immigrants from England, protected by a substantial castle and surrounded by deer parks for hunting. The work had not been completed by 1294, when the Welsh temporarily seized the castle during the Madog ap Llywelyn revolt. The defences continued to be improved, although the castle was not completely finished by the time of Henry's death in 1311.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Denbigh Asylum
The North Wales Lunatic Asylum was the first psychiatric institution built in Wales; construction began in 1844 and completed in 1848 in the town of Denbigh. The U-shaped Tudorbethain style hospital was built due to the spreading word of mistreatment of Welsh people in English asylums; The North Wales Hospital would be a haven for Welsh speaking residents to seek treatment without prejudice or a language barrier, but it was closed in sections from 1991 to 2002 and is now derelict. In 2008, Living TV's Most Haunted did a live series, "The Village of the Damned", on location in the North Wales Hospital which spanned over the course of a week. The producers of the show were criticized by residents of Denbigh for slurs against the town and the hospital. Also in 2008, during work to renovate the building site and convert it to apartments and residential properties, the building caught fire; the main hall of the hospital was destroyed. Arson is suspected.
Now an ancient monument, it was founded in the late 13th-century by the Carmelite order. The buildings were changed to houses during the Dissolution and the church used as a wool store.