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Our foundations are over 40 cm deep officially "sound". Donald our structural enginneer reckons they're probably made with stone from the house that stood here before the current one.
NEWPORT, RI – The U.S. Naval War College (NWC) holds a pinning ceremony for international students June 11, 2023 hosted at Salve Regina University’s Ochre Court. The ceremony, presided over by NWC President Rear Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, saw more than one hundred students from seventy-three countries recognized for their achievements while assigned to NWC. The students were part of the various international programs of study offered by NWC including: Naval Command College (NCC), Naval Staff College (NSC), or the Maritime Security and Governance Staff Course (MSGSC). Established in 1884, NWC informs today’s decision-makers and educates tomorrow’s leaders by providing educational experiences and learning opportunities that develop their ability to anticipate and prepare strategically for the future, strengthen the foundations of peace, and create a decisive warfighting advantage. (U.S. Navy photo by Brett Dodge/Released)
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Büdingen is located 15 km northwest of Gelnhausen and about 40 km east from Frankfurt am Main in a wet and sometimes swampy valley. The castle and the old town were built on centuries-old oak planks, set up on beech props. Therefore the water level has to be kept relatively high so that no air can reach these foundations.
First mention of Büdingen in the historical record was that in around 700 the wooden church of Saint Remigius was built by an unknown lord. An additional level was added to St. Remigius's church in about 1050 and the building has basically remained unchanged since then.
After a local war, Graf Ludwig II built an enormous new defensive wall with 22 towers around the old stronghold between 1480 and 1510. These walls are still incomplete and are one of the most important medieval strongholds in Germany.
For an interesting overview of Büdingen watch this U Tube video - A Day Out in Büdingen
Reconstruction has provided employment to tens of thousands of villagers all over the country as critical physical community infrastructure is restored and houses built in worst hit districts across Pakistan
Stockton-On-Tees | UK
Havent uploaded any work in a while so thought id upload this from todays shoot. Really pleased with it.
Foundations are a new band in my local area, most members have been in a few bands so quite excited to hear some proper stuff from these guys. We've already planned another shoot when some new equipment arrives and im really excited about it!
Anyway, website is coming along nicely, few final touches and it will be ready for your viewing pleasure!
Strobist:
Canon 430EX through softbox above camera
Indoor prompt. Definitely more comfortable working with pencil setups. This is a wc pencil sketch only version (no ink), which I plan to add watercolor to, but haven't done so yet. I was a bit burned out on the subject matter by this 3rd version. Even though I 'know' that multiple drawings of the same subject matter is good for developing accuracy and skill, I am bored quickly with repeating a subject! ;) Maybe I'll grow up someday and learn to be disciplined.
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 Glyndŵr 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.
During the First English Civil War, Denbigh was held by the Royalists until it was captured by Parliamentarian forces in October 1646. The castle was seized by pro-Royalist soldiers in 1659, after which General George Monk ordered it to be slighted, with various parts of the walls and towers being demolished. The site deteriorated further over the years and the old walled town remained almost deserted. In the middle of the 19th century, the town created a committee to manage the ruins and carried out restoration work. The Office of Works assumed responsibility for the fortifications in 1914, with the site ultimately passing into the control of the Welsh Cadw heritage agency.
Denbigh Castle is dominated by a triangle of three octagonal towers that forms its main entrance, considered by the historian John Goodall to be "the most architecturally sophisticated gatehouse of the thirteenth century". Eight mural towers protect the rest of its curtain wall, further protected by barbicans and a mantlet of defensive terraces and walls. The castle connects to the town walls, which remain largely intact and stretch for around 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) around the old town. The town walls were once protected by four towers and two gatehouses, although only one of the gatehouses still survives. The castle and town's gatehouse were constructed of decorative stonework, intended to symbolise royal authority and civic pride.
Denbigh Castle was constructed within what was originally the Welsh patrimony of Perfeddwlad. The patrimony controlled the pastoral farming lands on the Denbigh Moors and formed a royal residence, llys, for the Welsh princes. Perfeddwlad was strategically located along the Welsh border but its ownership was disputed and the territory was fought over by the Normans and Welsh many times during the 11th and 12th centuries.
In 1277, the Welsh prince Dafydd ap Gruffudd was granted Perfeddwlad by the English king, Edward I, who at the time was allied with Dafydd in his struggle against his brother Prince Llywelyn. Dafydd rebuilt the existing residence, creating a substantial castle. It is uncertain what form it took or exactly where on the current castle site it was located, but it included a bakehouse, buttery, chapel and a hall, and it became Dafydd's main stronghold. The Welsh called the settlement Dinbych, an abbreviation of Dinas Fechan, meaning "little fortress".
In 1282, Dafydd and Llywelyn rebelled against the King. Edward invaded North Wales with a huge army; after a month long siege, Dinbych fell to his forces in October 1282. The King created a new lordship to govern the district around Dinbych, which he renamed Denbigh and granted these lands to Henry de Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln.[3] With the help of James of St George, the King's master mason, Edward and Henry made plans for the construction of a new castle to govern the area, symbolically placed on top of the former llys.
Edward continued into Snowdonia, leaving Henry to continue the work at Denbigh, using local labourers and possibly men brought from Henry's estates in England. The western and southern sides of the castle and the new town walls were built first, in order to protect the construction teams and by 1285, Henry gave the new town its first charter. Work on the rest of the defences continued for several years. The castle and town formed part of a wider landscape controlled by de Lacey, including a nearby manor, a dovecote, barn and fishponds, which were all important symbols of lordship during the period. He similarly established three parks around the castle, stocked with deer from England.
The town walls enclosed an area approximately 9.5 acres (3.8 ha) in size and held 63 burgesses in 1285, each of which promised to provide an armed man to help protect the settlement. The townsfolk were English, many from Henry's estates in northern England and were reinforced by further English colonists who acquired large areas of rural land around the region. From the earliest days of the new settlement; the inhabitants began to spread out beyond the walls onto the flatter ground further down the hill, spurred on by the limited space and poor water supply in the inner town. This was unusual compared to the experience of other walled towns established in Wales at the time and within fifty years the external villa mercatoria had come to cover around 57 acres (23 ha).
The building work on Denbigh Castle had not been completed by September 1294, when a Welsh revolt broke out, led by Madog ap Llywelyn. The castle was taken by Welsh forces, despite efforts by Henry to relieve it and the fortification was not recaptured until December. The castle's defences continued to be improved, although it was not completely finished, possibly because the project was disrupted by the death of Henry's eldest son in an accident at the castle.
Henry de Lacy's daughter, Alice, inherited Denbigh Castle on his death in 1311. Alice was the wife of Thomas, the Earl of Lancaster, and the castle continued to be developed until Thomas was executed for treason in 1322. The following years were politically unstable and the castle was passed between several, short-lived, owners - Hugh Despenser, the Earl of Winchester and then Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March - before being held for a period by William Montagu. Work on the castle and the town walls continued throughout this period.
The Mortimer family reacquired the lordship in 1355 and carried out repairs over the next fifty years to the castle's stonework and timber. In 1400, Owain Glyndŵr led a revolt against the Crown and raided the town of Denbigh. Since Edmund Mortimer was only eight years old, King Henry IV placed Henry Percy in charge of Denbigh, until Percy defected to the rebels in 1403. Despite being isolated, Denbigh remained in royal hands through to the end of the rebellion in 1407. Edmund continued to hold the castle until he died, childless, in 1425, when ownership passed to Richard, the Duke of York.
During the Wars of the Roses, Denbigh was fought over by the rival Lancastrian and Yorkist factions. Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke and a Lancastrian supporter, was declared the constable of the castle by Henry VI in 1457 but the fortification remained in the hands of the Yorkists. After the Lancastrian victory at the Battle of Ludford Bridge, Jasper was able to force the garrison to surrender and finally took possession of the castle in 1460. The war then turned in favour of the Yorkists and despite the castle's new garrison holding out for several months under Roger Puleston, it was recaptured by Sir Richard Herbert in late 1461. The new Yorkist regime made William Herbert, Jasper's rival to the title of Earl of Pembroke, the constable and steward of Denbigh in 1467.
Jasper returned to Denbigh in 1468 and although he could not take the castle, he burnt the interior of the walled town. The attack spurred an exodus from the walled town to the newer suburbs. By the end of 16th century the inner area had been largely abandoned, coming to form part of the external defences of the castle and the Burgess Gate on the town walls became the town gaol. In 1586, the antiquarian William Camden could observe that the "old town is now deserted".
Much of the castle had fallen into decline by 1530 but six years later the castle became the centre for administrating the new county of Denbighshire, with the great gatehouse and nearby towers being used as a courthouse, prison and associated buildings by the county authorities. The remainder of the castle had fallen into ruin by 1561. Robert Dudley, later made the Earl of Leicester, was granted a lease of the castle in 1563, partially because the Crown was trying to reduce the costs of maintaining the dilapidated property.
During Dudley's tenure, Denbigh Castle was used as a place of imprisonment for those considered traitors by the officials of the Crown, including many dissidents towards the Elizabethan religious settlement. The most famous such prisoner was the Welsh poet and underground Catholic schoolmaster Richard Gwyn, who was imprisoned at Denbigh Castle from September 1581 to the Spring of 1582.
After Gwyn's execution on 15 October 1584, his head and one of his quarters were spiked upon Denbigh Castle. The other three quarters were similarly displayed at Wrexham, Ruthin Castle, and Holt Castle.
On 25 October 1970 Pope Paul VI presided over the canonization ceremony in Rome for St. Richard Gwyn, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
The Catholic Church in England commemorates Gwyn with a feast day together with all the 284 canonized and beatified martyrs of the English Reformation on 4 May. The Catholic Church in Wales commemorates him on the feast day of the Six Welsh Martyrs: priests Philip Evans and John Lloyd, John Jones, David Lewis, John Roberts, the layman Richard Gwyn, and their companions, every year on 25 October.
During his rule, Dudley also built a large Anglican parish church in the walled town, possibly intending it to become a cathedral and carried out some minor repairs to the castle but little other work was completed before his death in 1588.
When the First English Civil War broke out in August 1642, North Wales was solidly Royalist, and Denbigh Castle was held by a garrison of 500 under Colonel William Salesbury, who made repairs to the defences. By late 1645, the war had turned against the Royalists, and Charles I spent three days at the castle after his defeat at Rowton Heath in September.
The following month, a Royalist army under the command of Sir William Vaughan gathered at Denbigh Green, close to the ruins of Denbigh Friary, intending to march to Chester to relieve the forces under siege there. Before this, Vaughan was attacked and defeated by a force commanded by Sir Thomas Mytton, and some of the Royalist soldiers retreated into the castle in the aftermath. Mytton took the outer parts of Denbigh but could not break into the walled town or the castle.
Mytton returned the next year with additional equipment and placed the castle and the walled town under a close siege in April 1646, erecting earthwork bastions for his guns along the eastern site of Denbigh. The Goblin Tower along the town walls, which contained the garrison's main well, was bombarded with artillery and Mytton placed more guns on nearby Galch Hill to attack the south-western side of the walls. With only one artillery piece of his own and no Royalist reinforcements likely, Salesbury's position appeared hopeless but he held on, arguing that he had given assurances to the King that he would not surrender the castle. Finally, Charles I sent Salebsury a message, personally ordering him to give up Denbigh; after negotiations, Salesbury agreed to surrender on good terms on 26 October.
After Salesbury departed, Parliament installed a small garrison in the castle, under the command of Colonel George Twistleton, the new governor. It was used as a prison for political prisoners, including David Pennant, the High Sheriff of Flintshire and there was an abortive Royalist attempt in 1648 to break into the castle to rescue the inmates.
In 1659, Sir George Booth led an uprising of Royalist and Presbyterian leaders against the Commonwealth government. A group of Royalist soldiers seized Denbigh Castle in August and took the garrison prisoner. After Booth's defeat at the Battle of Winnington Bridge a few weeks later, the rebels surrendered and the government retook the castle. General George Monck then ordered it to be slighted, put beyond military use. The republican politician John Carter demolished parts of the curtain walls and two towers over the course of six weeks. The site fell further into ruin over the remainder of the century, with its stone being reused to build houses in the town. When granted briefly in 1696 to William Bentinck, the Earl of Portland, complaints were made in Parliament and it reverted to the Crown.
Denbigh Castle remained ruined, although a new grammar school was built in the walled town in 1726 and a bowling green was established around 1769. Castle House, a large private dwelling, was also constructed there in either the second quarter or the middle of the century, using stone taken from the castle ruins and Leicester's church. In the middle of the 19th century, the historian John Williams observed that the walled town remained otherwise deserted, with only three irregular rows of cottages, holding a total of 163 inhabitants; these dwellings attracted complaint from the writer Samuel Lewis, who argued that they "materially diminished the interest excited by the ruins". The western tower of the Burgess Gate was then being used as a private house, as had the eastern tower until a few years before.
In the middle of the 19th century, the town created a "Castle Committee" to maintain the ruins; the Crown leased the committee control of the castle and in 1879 lent them £300 to fund repairs to the ruins. The Crown reclaimed control of the Burgess Gate from its occupants and carried out conservation work, before then leasing the gatehouse to the committee in 1908. In 1914, the central government's Office of Works took over responsibility for the site and during the late 1950s, its successor organisation, the Ministry of Works, first bought and then demolished various later buildings along the walls to clear the area for research and visitors.
In the 21st century, Denbigh Castle and the town walls are maintained by the Welsh heritage agency Cadw. The castle is open to visitors, receiving 10,154 in 2015 and parts of the extant walls are also open to visitors. £600,000 was invested by Cadw in the castle and walls during the mid-2010s, financing the construction of a new visitors' centre. The site is protected under UK law as a scheduled ancient monument and the castle as a grade I listed building.
Denbigh Castle is located on a naturally defensible, rocky outcrop above the Clywd valley, with the walled town just beneath it to the north. The castle comprises a large gatehouse, with a curtain wall and mural towers encircling an inner area approximately 350 by 260 feet (107 by 79 m) across. The historian John Goodall considers the fortification to be "one of the outstanding architectural creations of the Welsh conquest".
The Great Gatehouse is formed by a triangle of octagonal towers around a central octagonal hall, protected by a barbican. The gatehouse was built using decorative bands of masonry in different colours, intended to symbolise Edward I's royal authority and displayed a statue, probably of Edward II, over the main entrance. The complex was defended with a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide ditch, a drawbridge, murder holes and a portcullis. The three towers making up the gatehouse have individual names: the Porter's Lodge and Prison towers face outwards and the Badnes Tower, possibly named after an early constable of the castle, lies to the rear. Goodall considers the building to be "the most architecturally sophisticated gatehouse of the thirteenth century" and notes that the architectural ideas were later "reworked to brilliant effect" at Knaresborough.
To the east of the gatehouse is the site of the Queen's Chapel, since destroyed and the castle well, which is over 50 feet (15 m) deep. The hexagonal, three-storey Great Kitchen Tower and the White Chamber Tower, which was slighted after the English Civil War, flank the foundations of the Great Hall. Further south is the Pitcher House Tower, probably used for storing water during the summer months and the Green Chambers, so called because of the colour of their Gwespyr stonework. The chambers have basements specially designed for the storage of meat and wine and the upper storeys originally contained exceptionally fine accommodation.
At the southern end of the castle, the Postern Tower, originally three storeys high, links the castle to one end of the town walls. The adjacent Upper Gate and the Postern Gate formed a rear entrance to the castle, protected by another barbican, drawbridges and a steep passageway.
A mantlet of defensive terraces and cross-walls stretches around the south and eastern sides of the castle and originally prevented the undermining of the mural towers and thinnest stretches of the curtain wall. This side of the castle was protected by the Treasure House Tower, which held the Treasure House; the Tower-next-Treasure House; the Bishop's Tower, containing a sally port and the octagonal Red Tower, named after the red sandstone used in its construction, which linked to the other end of the town wall circuit. Stables, a blacksmith's workshop and storehouses once ran along the inside of the south-western corner of the castle.
The town walls stretch for around 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) from the north edge of the castle to its southeastern tip and mostly remain intact. The walls were built in the 13th century and originally protected by four mural towers, positioned in a disorderly pattern; the two gatehouses and the defences along the eastern salient were added in the 14th century.
Only the foundations of the Exchequer Gate on the western side of the walls remain but the gatehouse would originally have been protected by two circular towers, with a rectangular glacis base to prevent undermining. The walls between the Exchequer and Burgess Gate at the north-west corner of the circuit are intact. The Burgess Gate has two circular towers protecting a vaulted passage way, again with a distinctive glacis base. The gatehouse is built from white limestone and yellow sandstone, with the stonework forming a chequered design; this was a common decorative approach at the time and would have symbolised local civic pride. Although the top courses have been lost, the gatehouse might originally have stood up to 60 feet (18 m) tall. The section of the walls to the east of the Burgess Gate has been lost.
The walled circuit recommences in the north-east corner of the town, where the walls survive up to 15 feet (4.6 m) high, further protected by the two-storey tall North-Eastern Tower. On the eastern side of the walls, the original defences had been set back from the edge of a rocky salient, protected by the Countess Tower, an angular, two-storey building with two towers. The defences were adapted to follow the outer edge of the salient, with the Goblin Tower built on the outermost point, overlooking the edge of the cliffs. The Goblin Tower is a hexagonal, two-storey tower, protecting a deep well that formed the only reliable source of water for the defences during the summer.
The walled circuit continues south, meeting the Bastion Tower in the south-east corner.[88] The Bastion Tower was originally three storeys tall and was decorated with chequered sandstone and limestone in a similar fashion to the Burgess Gate.
Denbigh is a market town and a community in Denbighshire, Wales. Formerly the county town of the historic county of Denbighshire until 1888, Denbigh's Welsh name (Dinbych) translates to "Little Fortress"; a reference to its historic castle. Denbigh lies near the Clwydian Hills.
Denbigh Castle, together with its town walls, was built in 1282 (742 years ago) by order of King Edward I. The Burgess Gate, whose twin towers adorn the symbol on Denbigh's civic seal, was once the main entrance into the town. The first borough charter was granted to Denbigh in 1290, when the town was still contained within the old town walls. It was the centre of the Marcher Lordship of Denbigh. The town was involved in the revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294–1295; the castle was captured in the autumn and, on 11 November 1294, a relieving force was defeated by the Welsh rebels. The town was recaptured by Edward I in December. Denbigh was also burnt in 1400 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.
During the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), the town was largely destroyed, subsequently moving from the hilltop to the area of the present town market.
Leicester's Church is an unfinished church. In 1579, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was also Baron of Denbigh, planned for there to be a cathedral. His intention was to move the status of city from neighbouring St Asaph. The project ran out of money and, when Robert Dudley died, it was left as ruins; it is now in the care of Cadw.
In 1643, during the English Civil War, Denbigh became a refuge for a Royalist garrison. Surrendering in 1646, the castle and town walls eventually fell into ruin.
The town grew around the textile industry in the 1600s, hosting specialist glovers, weavers, smiths, shoemakers, saddlers, furriers and tanners. Denbigh has been an important location for the agricultural industry throughout its history.
Denbigh railway station once served the town on the former London and North Western Railway, later part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
It was a junction for the Vale of Clwyd Railway line, which lead north to St Asaph and Rhyl, and the Mold and Denbigh Junction Railway. The former was closed in 1955, leaving Denbigh on a lengthy branch running from Chester to Ruthin, via Mold, which subsequently closed in 1962. A southern continuation beyond Ruthin, linking up with the Great Western Railway at Corwen, had closed in 1952.
The station site has been redeveloped since into a small retail park; however, remains of a platform can still be seen beside the road leading to the Home Bargains store, Aldi Supermarket and two charity shops.
At one time, the majority of the population sought employment at the North Wales Hospital, which, dating back to the 1840s, cared for people with psychiatric illnesses. The hospital closed in 1995 and has since fallen into disrepair. In October 2008, a special series of episodes of Most Haunted, titled Village of the Damned, was broadcast from the North Wales Hospital over 7 days. As of October 2018, the derelict building has passed into the ownership of Denbighshire County Council.
Denbigh had a town cinema on Love Lane. It opened as the Scala in 1928, before being re-branded as the Wedgwood Cinema in the late 1970s. It closed in October 1980, then reopened by Lewis Colwell in 1982 and renamed the Futura Cinema. The cinema closed again in the 1990s, but the building remained open as a video rental store. In 1995, Peter Moore reopened the cinema for a short period before being arrested and convicted of the murder of four men. The video rental store closed and the building is now in ruin awaiting redevelopment. Denbigh has no permanent cinema, though Denbigh Film Club regularly operates in Theatr Twm o'r Nant.
The population at the 2001 Census was 8,783,[10] increasing to 8,986 in the 2011 census., reducing in the 2021 census to 8,669.
Attractions in the town include Denbigh Library, Denbigh Castle and the castle walls, Cae Dai 1950s museum, Theatr Twm o'r Nant, medieval parish church St Marcella's, and a small shopping complex. Denbigh Boxing Club is located on Middle Lane. Denbigh Community Hospital was established in 1807. Denbigh Town Hall is a Grade II* listed building.
Denbigh Cricket Club is one of the oldest cricket clubs in Wales having been established in 1844. The club plays at the Ystrad Road ground and plays in the North Wales Cricket League. The 1st XI play in the Premier Division having won the Division 1 championship in 2010 with the 2nd XI in Division 3.
For over 50 years, a barrel rolling competition has been held on Boxing Day in the town square.
There are a number of places to stay in Denbigh, including Tyn Yr Eithin, a caravan, camping, and glamping site based on the edge of the town which has been hosting tourists since 1986.
There are three secondary schools located in Denbigh. Denbigh High School is the larger of the two, consisting of nearly 600 pupils and approximately 60 staff. The current headmaster is Glen Williams.
St Brigid's is a Catholic voluntary aided school on Mold Road on the outskirts of the town which caters for pupils between the ages of 3 – 19. There is a strict admissions policy and until 2009 the school only accepted girls. The schools current headteacher is Leah Crimes.
Myddleton College is the former Howell's Preparatory School and is an independent co-educational day and boarding school.
All 3 of these High Schools in Denbigh, along with Ysgol Brynhyfryd (Ruthin), Ysgol Glan Clwyd (St Asaph), Denbigh College, and Llysfasi College (Deeside) have joined to offer a combined 6th form under the title 'The Dyffryn Clwyd Consortium'.
Crest Mawr Wood (alt. - Crêst) is a Site of Special Scientific Interest to the north west, adjoining Denbigh Golf Club and the Tarmac Quarry, an historic and ancient deciduous woodland. This woodland is endangered due to environmental pressure and competing land use in the area.
Denbigh hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1882, 1939, 2001 and 2013.
Notable people
Rhoda Broughton (1840–1920), novelist
Elizabeth Casson (1881–1954) doctor and occupational therapy pioneer.
Shefali Chowdhury (born 1988), actor, notably in the Harry Potter films
CDawgVA (born 1996), YouTuber and podcaster, presenter of Trash Taste
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532–1588), also known as Baron of Denbigh
Thomas Gee (1815–1898), a Welsh Nonconformist preacher, journalist and publisher.
David Griffith (1800–1894), known as "Clwydfardd" a Welsh poet and Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales.
Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), visited friends and relation in Denbigh many times and has an urn memorial in his honour in the woods nearby.
Professor Edward Taylor Jones FRSE (1872–1961), physicist
Eirian Llwyd (1951–2014), printmaker and wife of former Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones
Humphrey Llwyd (1527–1568), a Welsh cartographer, author, antiquary and MP.
Sir Hugh Myddleton (1560–1631), royal jeweller, goldsmith and entrepreneur.
Thomas Myddelton (1550–1631) a Welsh merchant, Lord Mayor of London & MP
Twm o'r Nant (1739–1810), playwright, real name Thomas Edwards
Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), spent summers with her aunt and uncle at Gwaenynog Hall between 1895 and 1913 and used their large garden as inspiration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Susan Reynolds (1929–2021) a medieval historian
Kate Roberts (1891–1985), Welsh language writer.
Several members of the Salusbury Family, who represented Denbigh over the years.
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904), a journalist and explorer
Mark Webster (born 1983) Welsh darts international, winner of the BDO World Darts Championship 2008
Bryn Williams (born 1977), TV chef who won the Great British Menu BBC TV programme.
Denbighshire is a county in the north-east of Wales. It borders the Irish Sea to the north, Flintshire to the east, Wrexham to the southeast, Powys to the south, and Gwynedd and Conwy to the west. Rhyl is the largest town, and Ruthin is the administrative centre. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name.
Denbighshire has an area of 326 square miles (840 km2) and a population of 95,800, making it sparsely populated. The most populous area is the coast, where Rhyl (25,149) and Prestatyn (19,085) form a single built-up area with a population of 46,267. The next-largest towns are Denbigh (8,986), Ruthin (5,461), and Rhuddlan (3,709). St Asaph (3,355) is a city. All of these settlements are in the northern half of the county; the south is even less densely populated, and the only towns are Corwen (2,325) and Llangollen (3,658).
The geography of Denbighshire is defined by the broad valley of the River Clwyd, which is surrounded by rolling hills on all sides except the north, where it reaches the coast. The Vale of Clwyd, the lower valley, is given over to crops, while cattle and sheep graze the uplands. The Clwydian Range in the east is part of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewydd-Llanelwy) Palaeolithic site has Neanderthal remains of some 225,000 years ago. The county is also home to several medieval castles, including Castell Dinas Brân, Denbigh, and Rhuddlan, as well as St Asaph Cathedral. Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod takes place in the town each July.
The main area was formed on 1 April 1996 under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, from various parts of the county of Clwyd. It includes the district of Rhuddlan (formed in 1974 entirely from Flintshire), the communities of Trefnant and Cefn Meiriadog from the district of Colwyn (entirely Denbighshire) and most of the Glyndŵr district. The last includes the former Edeyrnion Rural District, part of the administrative county of Merionethshire before 1974, covering the parishes of Betws Gwerfil Goch, Corwen, Gwyddelwern, Llangar, Llandrillo yn Edeirnion and Llansanffraid.
Other principal areas including part of historical Denbighshire are Conwy, which picked up the remainder of 1974–1996 Colwyn, the Denbighshire parts of 1974–1996 Aberconwy, and Wrexham, which corresponds to the pre-1974 borough of Wrexham along with most of Wrexham Rural District and several parishes of Glyndŵr. Post-1996 Powys includes the historically Denbighshire parishes of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Llansilin and Llangedwyn, which formed part of Glyndŵr district.
Researchers have found signs that Denbighshire was inhabited at least 225,000 years ago. Bontnewydd Palaeolithic site is one of the most significant in Britain. Hominid remains of probable Neanderthals have been found, along with stone tools from the later Middle Pleistocene.
In 2021 February, archaeologists from Aeon Archaeology announced a discovery of over 300 Stone Age tools and artifacts in Rhuddlan. They revealed scrapers, microliths, flakes of chert (a hard, fine-grained, sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz), flints and other rudimentary tools. An expert, Richard Cooke, believes the lithic remains belonged to ancient peoples, who while passing through the area, made camp by the river more than 9,000 years ago.
The eastern edge of Denbighshire follows the ridge of the Clwydian Range, with a steep escarpment to the west and a high point at Moel Famau (1,820 ft (555 m)), which with the upper Dee Valley forms an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley – one of just five in the Wales. The Denbigh Moors (Mynydd Hiraethog) are in the west of the county and the Berwyn Range adjacent to the southern edge. The River Clwyd has a broad fertile Vale running from south–north in the centre of the county. There is a narrow coastal plain in the north which much residential and holiday-trade development. The highest point in the historic county was Cadair Berwyn at 832 m or 2,730 ft), but the boundary changes since 1974 make Cadair Berwyn North Top the highest point. Denbighshire borders the present-day principal areas of Gwynedd, Conwy County Borough, Flintshire, Wrexham County Borough, and Powys.
Rhyl and Prestatyn form a single built-up area in the north of the county, with a population of 46,267. They are immediately adjacent to the Kinmel Bay and Abergele built-up area in neighbouring Conwy, and at the eastern end of series of coastal resorts which that also includes Colwyn Bay and Llandudno further west.
According to the 2021 United Kingdom census, Denbighshire's population was approximately 95,800. According to previous censuses, the population of Denbighshire was 93,734 in 2011 and 93,065 in 2001. The largest towns on the coast are Rhyl (2001 population c. 25,000) and Prestatyn (2001 population c. 18,000). According to the 2011 Census returns, 24.6 per cent stated they could speak Welsh.
Since the 20th-century demise of the coal and steel industries in the Wrexham area, there is no heavy industry in the county. Although most towns have small industrial parks or estates for light industry, the economy is based on agriculture and tourism. Much of the working population is employed in the service sector. The uplands support sheep and beef cattle rearing, while in the Vale of Clwyd dairy farming and wheat and barley crops predominate. Many towns have livestock markets and farming supports farm machinery merchants, vets, feed merchants, contractors and other ancillaries. With their incomes on the decline, farmers have found opportunities in tourism, rural crafts, specialist food shops, farmers' markets and value-added food products.
The upland areas with their sheep farms and small, stone-walled fields are attractive to visitors. Redundant farm buildings are often converted into self-catering accommodation, while many farmhouses supply bed and breakfast. The travel trade began with the arrival of the coast railway in the mid-19th century, opening up the area to Merseyside. This led to a boom in seaside guest houses. More recently, caravan sites and holiday villages have thrived and ownership of holiday homes increased. Initiatives to boost the economy of North Wales continue, including redevelopment of the Rhyl seafront and funfair.
The North Wales Coast Line running from Crewe to Holyhead is served by Transport for Wales and Avanti West Coast services. Trains leaving Crewe to pass through Chester, cross the River Dee into Wales, and continue through Flint, Shotton, Holywell Junction (closed in 1966), Prestatyn, Rhyl, and stations to Bangor and Holyhead, which has a ferry service to Ireland.
There are no motorways in Denbighshire. The A55 dual carriageway runs from Chester through St Asaph to the North Wales coast at Abergele, then parallel to the railway through Conwy and Bangor to Holyhead. The A548 run from Chester to Abergele through Deeside and along the coast, before leaving the coast and terminating at Llanrwst. The main road from London, the A5, passes north-westwards through Llangollen, Corwen and Betws-y-Coed to join the A55 and terminate at Bangor. The A543 crosses the Denbigh Moors from south-east to north-west, and the A525 links Ruthin with St Asaph.
There are local bus services between the main towns. Several services by Arriva Buses Wales run along the main coast road between Chester and Holyhead, linking the coastal resorts. Another route links Rhyl to Denbigh.
Denbighshire is represented in the House of Commons by three MPs. The Welsh Labour Party lost to the Welsh Conservatives in the 2019 general election for the first time.
The following MPs were elected from Denbighshire in 2019:
Simon Baynes (Welsh Conservatives) in Clwyd South, first elected in 2019.
David Jones (Welsh Conservatives) in Clwyd West, first elected in 2005.
James Davies (Welsh Conservatives) in Vale of Clwyd, first elected in 2019.
Denbighshire is also represented in the Senedd by three members elected in 2021:
Ken Skates (Welsh Labour) in Clwyd South, first elected in 2011
Darren Millar (Welsh Conservatives) in Clwyd West, first elected in 2007
Gareth Davies (Welsh Conservatives) in Vale of Clwyd, first elected in 2021.
In 2019, research by UnHerd in association with the pollster FocalData showed that most people across the county support the British monarchy.