After the conquest of 1282, Edward I granted the new lordship of Denbigh to Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who commissioned the castle, the town walls and the town. James of St George, the King's master mason, helped plan it. The inner area measures about 350 by 260 feet (107 by 79 meters), and the town walls run around 3,600 feet (1,100 meters).
The Great Gatehouse is a triangle of three octagonal towers around a central octagonal hall. The historian John Goodall called it the most architecturally sophisticated gatehouse of the thirteenth century. The castle well is more than 50 feet deep.
Welsh forces seized the castle in September 1294, and it was recaptured in December. In 1659 George Monck ordered it slighted. Cadw maintains it, and it is Grade I listed.
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