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About a mile east of Denbigh's town centre stands St Marcella's Church, the original parish church of Denbigh and, for centuries, the town's principal place of worship before that role passed to the more centrally located St Hilary's Chapel in the 19th century. It's dedicated to Marchell, or Marcella, a Welsh saint of the 5th or 6th century, and is also widely known as Whitchurch — Eglwys Wen in Welsh — possibly because its exterior walls were once whitewashed.
Although the site has earlier origins, the present church is closely tied to the founding of Denbigh itself, dating from around 1290, when Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was building Denbigh Castle; the church is mentioned as early as the Norwich Taxation of 1254, and most of today's structure dates from a major rebuilding around 1500. Architecturally it's a fine example of the 'Vale of Clwyd' type of church, with twin parallel naves of equal size and no structural division between nave and chancel, beneath a striking hammer-beam roof with a carved frieze and large perpendicular windows.
St Marcella's is also where the poet and playwright Twm o'r Nant was buried in 1810, and remains an active church within the Diocese of St Asaph, as well as a Grade I listed building — a quieter, less-visited counterpart to the castle and town walls, but one with an equally direct line back to Denbigh's medieval origins.
Also known as Whitchurch, from its position just outside the town walls, St Marcella's served for centuries as Denbigh's parish church while the town itself lacked a completed church of its own within the walls — a legacy of Leicester's Church having been abandoned unfinished. The present building dates largely from the 15th century, though a church has stood on the site for much longer, and it contains fine medieval woodwork and monuments to several notable Denbighshire families.
The churchyard is the burial place of Twm o'r Nant, the celebrated Welsh interlude-writer, whose grave remains a point of local pride and a modest pilgrimage site for those interested in Welsh literary history. St Marcella's continues in regular use as a parish church today, one of the oldest continuously used religious sites in the Denbigh area.