Near Denbigh Castle, in north Wales, stand the walls of a church that was never completed. It was the most ambitious religious project of the Elizabethan age — the dream of a favourite of the queen, broken by debts and war.
Dudley's Protestant dream
Built from 1578 for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester — the great favourite of Elizabeth I and lord of Denbigh —, this church was to be exceptional: the first great religious building conceived specifically for Protestant worship in England as in Wales. At a time when the Reformation was content to adapt the existing medieval churches, to build a new church, designed for the new liturgy, was a unique audacity. Dudley perhaps wanted to make it the replacement for St Asaph Cathedral, making Denbigh a great Protestant religious centre. It was, in the whole reign, the only great church-building project.
A roofless shell
But the dream came to nothing. Financial difficulties piled up: Dudley was unpopular, and the funds were diverted to his costly military campaign in the Netherlands and Ireland. The works stopped in 1584, at window height only, and Dudley's death in 1588 definitively condemned the project. Only an unfinished shell remains, a 'church without a roof' whose ambitious plan can still be read on the ground. This poignant remnant bears witness to a broken Elizabethan Protestant dream — and recalls that, even at the height of royal favour, a great lord could fail for lack of money. To see: the unfinished walls stopped at window height, the ambitious plan legible on the ground, the nearness of Denbigh Castle on its hill.
Did you know?
Leicester's church at Denbigh is the only great entirely new religious building undertaken under the reign of Elizabeth I, in England as in Wales — for the Reformation, hostile to 'popish superstitions', did not build churches, it made do with the old ones. That this unique project remained unfinished, for lack of money and by the death of its patron, makes it a doubly rare symbol: that of an exceptional Protestant religious ambition, and that of a failure — a ruin that was never a finished building.
Notes
Earl of Leicester's Church lies at Denbigh (Dinbych), near the castle, Denbighshire; remains run by Cadw, freely accessible. Hours to check.
Quiz
- For whom was the Denbigh church begun in 1578?
- Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
- The pope
- Henry VIII
- What was it to be?
- The first great church conceived for Protestant worship
- A Catholic abbey
- A castle
- Why did it remain unfinished?
- Financial difficulties and Dudley's death (1588)
- An earthquake
- An invasion