castle, stocked with deer from England. The town walls enclosed an area approximately 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 . 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. 14th – 16th centuries 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