occupants and carried out conservation work, before then leasing the gatehouse to the committee in 1908. In 1914, the central government's Office of Works took over responsibility for the site and during the late 1950s, its successor organisation, the Ministry of Works, first bought and then demolished various later buildings along the walls to clear the area for research and visitors. In the 21st century, Denbigh Castle and the town walls are maintained by the Welsh heritage agency Cadw. The castle is open to visitors, receiving 10,154 in 2015 and parts of the extant walls are also open to visitors. £600,000 was invested by Cadw in the castle and walls during the mid-2010s, financing the construction of a new visitors' centre. The site is protected under UK law as a scheduled ancient monument and the castle as a grade I listed building. Architecture Castle Denbigh Castle is located on a naturally defensible, rocky outcrop above the Clywd valley, with the walled town just beneath it to the north. The castle comprises a large gatehouse, with a curtain wall and mural towers encircling an inner area approximately across. The historian John Goodall considers the fortification to be "one of the outstanding architectural creations of the Welsh conquest". The Great Gatehouse is formed by a triangle of octagonal towers around a central octagonal hall, protected by a barbican. The gatehouse was built using decorative bands of masonry in different colours, intended to symbolise Edward I's royal authority and displayed a statue, probably of Edward II, over the main entrance. The complex was defended with a wide ditch, a drawbridge, murder holes and a portcullis. The three towers making up the gatehouse have individual names: the Porter's Lodge and Prison towers face outwards and the Badnes Tower, possibly named after an early constable of the castle, lies to the rear. Goodall considers the building to be "the most architecturally sophisticated gatehouse of the thirteenth century" and notes that the architectural ideas were later "reworked to brilliant effect" at Knaresborough. To the east of the gatehouse is the site of the Queen's Chapel, since destroyed and the castle well, which is over deep. The hexagonal, three-storey Great Kitchen Tower and the White Chamber Tower, which was slighted after the English Civil War, flank the foundations of the Great Hall. Further south is the Pitcher House Tower, probably used for storing water during the summer