The Shire Hall and Market Square
The Act of Union of 1536 had created Denbigh as one of four administrative
capitals of Wales and this status provided favourable conditions to encourage the expansion of market trading in the town. The appointment in 1563 of the Earl of Leicester, who was the Queen's favourite, as Lord of Denbigh, cemented Denbigh's importance and founded a successful future as a county market town. In order to consolidate Denbigh's administrative and trading position the Earl of Leicester built a new Shire Hall in 1572, incorporating an open colonnaded Market Hall on the ground-floor with a council and justice chamber on the first-floor. It was modified in the 1780s with a new roof, rusticated entrance and new fenestration, including Venetian windows. The colonnades have been enclosed and the building is now used as the town library.
During the sixteenth century Denbigh was renowned for its glovers and mercers and specialist craft guilds had been established. As trade and commerce developed, the number of shops, inns, taverns and merchant's houses increased. Historically, the market was held from Henllan Street right through Bridge Street and High Street, to the bottom end of Vale Street. The top end of Vale Street retains many eighteenth-century town houses of the country gentry, while there is a sixteenth-century merchant's house in Bridge Street. During the Civil War the Parliamentary Generals Mytton and Myddleton are said to have made their headquarters in the Bull Inn while besieging Denbigh Castle under the Royalist defender Colonel Salesbury.
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