Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.
No charge for anyone.
Cadw says parking and toilets are available at Denbigh Castle during castle opening times, with two charged Type 2 electric points in the castle car park, and the castle's access guide calls it a free car park with an accessible space; it holds about 15 cars up a narrow road and is only open in castle hours (10am to 5pm except Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 30 March to 1 November, Friday to Sunday 10am to 4pm in winter). Outside those hours use Denbighshire County Council's Vale Street or Factory Ward car parks about 300 m down Bull Lane and the High Street (Factory Ward: 30 minutes free, £1.50 an hour, £4.00 all day) or the free eight-space Mount Pleasant car park. Bull Lane is a stiff, narrow and winding pull up from the town.
Driving pin: Bull Lane at the church's west gable, the public arrival point for viewing the ruin, 32 m from Cadw's marker inside the locked enclosure, 145 m from Denbigh Castle's stored pin and 67 m from St Hilary's Chapel. By road: Denbigh via the A525, A543 or B5382. Buses 151 and 152 from Rhyl stop 300 m away; rail at Abergele, 12 km.
Earl of Leicester's Church, Eglwys Iarll Leicester, is the roofless, unfinished shell of the most ambitious church of Elizabethan England, standing inside Denbigh's old town walls beside Bull Lane on the climb to the castle. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the Queen's favourite, began it in 1578 as the first large church built for Protestant worship after the Reformation, a preaching hall 55 metres long and 23 wide with no division between nave and chancel, Gothic outside and classical within, with arcades of Tuscan columns; it was meant to replace the overcrowded St Hilary's Chapel and perhaps St Asaph Cathedral itself. Money ran out in 1584 with the walls only at window height, and when Dudley died unexpectedly in 1588 the work was abandoned for good, the only large new church begun in Britain in Elizabeth's reign. Today the long walls with their tall round-headed openings enclose a mown lawn behind a locked gate, seen from the lane; St Hilary's tower and the castle lie a minute's walk beyond.
Can be viewed externally all year during reasonable daylight hours; the grassed interior is behind a locked gate and Cadw publishes no key arrangement, though it has been open at times. No admission charge and no castle ticket needed. Cadw may close monuments at short notice in extreme weather.
Terrain level 1, accessible: the pavement and lane outside the walls. Toilets at the castle visitor centre during castle hours. Drones are not permitted.
Dogs: Cadw: 'Dogs welcome. Dogs on short leads welcome to access ground floor levels of the site.' In practice the ruin is viewed from the street. Cadw's Denbigh Town Walls page says dogs are welcome on the walls, which are walked by key from the castle.
Photo: The arcaded walls of the unfinished Leicester's Church rising above a stone boundary wall on the lane in Denbigh. JohnArmagh, Public domain. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leicester%27s_Church,_Denbigh.jpg. Licence: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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Short town walk from the castle past St Hilary's Chapel and Lord Leicester's Church, along Leicester Terrace to the Burgess Gate, down to the High Street and back up Bull Lane through the town walls to the Countess and Goblin towers and through the woods to the castle car park; ask the castle custodian for the town walls key and lock the gates behind you. Free; a 2012 article whose key arrangement is still current.
Dog access not confirmed
1.25 miles (2 km), about 75 minutes, from Factory Place car park (LL16 3TS) with ten stops including the Burgess Gate, the town walls (key from the castle), Leicester's Church on the left walking up Bull Lane, St Hilary's Chapel and the castle; some moderate uphill sections and uneven surfaces on the walls. Free.
