Denbighshire
- Eleanor Conlon
- Oct 2, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 4, 2025
Where is Denbighshire?
In our episode about the historic Welsh county of Denbighshire, we talked about lots of interesting places and things, so here are some links and pictures if you're interested in finding out more!
Dee Valley
The Clwydian Range and Dee Valley (Welsh: Bryniau Clwyd a Dyffryn Dyfrdwy) is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; also known as a National Landscape) located in north-east Wales, covering the Clwydian Range (Welsh: Bryniau Clwyd), and the valley of the River Dee (Welsh: Afon Dyfrdwy).
Designated in 1985 as the Clwydian Range AONB, and expanded to its current extent in 2011, the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty includes: medieval field systems, open heather moorland, prehistoric hillforts, limestone crags, broad leaved woodland, wooded valleys, and farmland.
Colwyn Bay
from Sackville Cottages
Colwyn Bay is a town, community and seaside resort in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales overlooking the Irish Sea. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Denbighshire.
The western side of Colwyn Bay, Rhos-on-Sea, includes a number of historic sites associated with St Trillo and Ednyfed Fychan, the 13th century general and councillor to Llywelyn the Great.
Denbigh Castle
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.
The castle passed between various owners in the first half of the 14th century, before coming under the control of the Mortimer family. Meanwhile, the walled town had proved impractical to live in, and a newer, much larger, settlement developed outside the defences. In 1400, the walled town was raided during the Glyndwr Rising, although the castle itself remained secure throughout the rebellion. During the Wars of the Roses, Denbigh was attacked by Lancastrian forces; the walled town was attacked and burnt. In the aftermath, the old town was largely abandoned by its inhabitants, the walled area becoming an extension of the castle's defences.
Dinas Bran
Castell Dinas Brân is a medieval castle, built by the Princes of Powys Fadog, which occupies a prominent hilltop site above the town of Llangollen in Denbighshire, Wales. The presently visible stone castle was probably built in the 1260s by Gruffydd Maelor II, a prince of Powys Fadog, on the site of several earlier structures, including an Iron Age hillfort.
Dinas Brân has been variously translated as the "crow's fortress" or "fortress of Brân", with Brân as the name of an individual or of a nearby stream.An English name, "Crow Castle", has also been used since at least the 18th century.
The Denbigh Plum
The Denbigh Plum - or the Vale of Clwyd Denbigh Plum to give it its full name - is Wales' only native plum.
The Denbigh Plum can be traced back to 1785, however according to folklore it is believed to have been grown by Carmelite monks in the 13th Century in the Vale of Clwyd.
Owain Glendywr
Owain ap Gruffydd (28 May 1354 – 20 September 1415), commonly known as Owain Glyndŵr (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈoʊain ɡlɨ̞nˈduːr], also Glyn Dŵr; anglicised as Owen Glendower) was a Welsh leader, soldier and military commander in the late Middle Ages, who led a 15-year-long Welsh revolt with the aim of ending English rule in Wales. He was an educated lawyer, forming the first Welsh parliament under his rule, and was the last native-born Welshman to claim the title Prince of Wales.
Plas Newydd and the Ladies of Llangollen
Plas Newydd (/plæs ˈnoʊɪð/, Welsh pronunciation: [ˈplaːs ˈnɛu̯ɨð]; "new hall" or "new mansion") is a historic house in the town of Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales, and was the home of the Ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, for nearly 50 years. Today, it is run as a museum by Denbighshire County Council.
Plas Newydd is notable as the home where two Irish ladies, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby (the Ladies of Llangollen) eloped and set up house together in the late 18th century, scandalising contemporary British society.
Plas Newydd was originally a five-roomed stone cottage, but over the years it was enlarged to include many Gothic features. Although originally ostracised by their families, the ladies and their unconventional lifestyle gradually became accepted, and their home was visited by many famous people including Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, Lady Caroline Lamb and Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington and the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood.
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (Welsh pronunciation: [ˌpɔntkəˈsəɬtɛ]; Welsh: Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales.
The 19-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use by narrowboats and was completed in 1805 having taken ten years to design and build. It is 12 feet (3.7 metres) wide and is the longest aqueduct in Great Britain as well as the highest canal aqueduct in the world. A towpath runs alongside the watercourse on one side.
The aqueduct was to have been a key part of the central section of the proposed Ellesmere Canal, an industrial waterway that would have created a commercial link between the River Severn at Shrewsbury and the Port of Liverpool on the River Mersey. Although a less expensive construction course was surveyed further to the east, the westerly high-ground route across the Vale of Llangollen was preferred because it would have taken the canal through the mineral-rich coalfields of North East Wales. Only parts of the canal route were completed because the expected revenues required to complete the entire project were never generated. Most major work ceased after the completion of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805.
The Pillar of Eliseg
Erected in the first half of the 9th century in a prominent position on a Bronze Age burial cairn, all that remains of this cross is the rounded lower shaft. The inscription that decorates the pillar is weathered and unreadable today but we do know that this modest monument tells an epic story about Wales’s former rulers.
One phrase includes the names of successive rulers of the kingdom of Powys during the 8th and 9th centuries. Another reveals that the cross was erected by Cyngen in memory of his great-grandfather Eliseg, who was said to have expelled the Anglo-Saxon English from this part of Wales.
It’s thought that the carefully composed inscription, which includes legal terminology, was intended to be read aloud, to be proclaimed to an audience. Could this be where the ancient rulers of Powys were appointed? Is it a victory monument, declaring political ownership of land won back from the English, or vital propaganda at a time when the kingdom was under threat? Or all of these things?
The nearby abbey of Valle Crucis (‘The Valley of the Cross’) took its name from the pillar; families of the rulers of northern Powys were buried at the abbey church.
Huail's Stone
Maen Huail is a stone block at St Peter's Square, in the centre of Ruthin, Denbighshire, North Wales. A circular plaque next to it states "Maen Huail on which tradition states, King Arthur beheaded Huail, brother of Gildas the historian".
The stone was recorded in 1699 as being in the middle of the road, and now stands on a concrete plinth against the half-timbered wall of the Barclays Bank building, a 20th-century copy of the now mainly destroyed Exmewe Hall.
The legend probably originated as an oral tradition, and is first recorded in the Chronicle of Six Ages of the World by Elis Gruffydd, dating to around 1550.The stone itself is thought more likely to be a market or civic stone, or a preaching stone.It is a craggy and heavily weathered limestone boulder, measuring 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) long, and some 0.6 metres (2.0 ft) high and wide.
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