At the rear of the former Hawk and Buckle Inn, in Vale Street, by the existing malt-house, was a cockpit, now re-erected at the Museum of Welsh Life, St Fagan's, near Cardiff.
The precise date of the building is uncertain, but a silver tankard hall-marked 1726, engraved with two fighting cocks and the name 'Denbigh', is said to have been offered as a prize at the cockpit. It is thought that the building may have been erected during the second half of the seventeenth century. The building was in a poor state and was re-erected at St Fagan's, where it has been restored to something like its original form.
Other cockpits in north-eastern Wales were sited at Wrexham and Welshpool. Various Acts were passed from 1835 onwards, to outlaw cockfighting but it was not made illegal until 1952.
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