This sombre building is the only Pentonville-style Victorian prison in Britain that's open to visitors. A free audio guide allows you to follow the sentence of an imaginary prisoner, while information panels in the cells fill you in on all the fascinating and grisly details of day-to-day prison life and the daring escapes of John Jones, the 'Welsh Houdini', banged up here in the 1870s. Pentonville-style prisons employed the 'separate system' of isolating and observing inmates.
Ruthin Gaol
Snowdonia & the Llŷn
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct & Canal World Heritage Site
13.71 MILES
The preeminent Georgian engineer Thomas Telford (1757–1834) built the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805 to carry the canal over the River Dee. At 307m long, 3…
24.17 MILES
Caernarfon is more complete, Harlech more dramatically positioned and Beaumaris more technically perfect, yet out of the four castles that compose the…
24.18 MILES
Britain's largest church, this magnificent neo-Gothic building is also the world's largest Anglican cathedral. It was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott …
26.73 MILES
Sitting unobtrusively near the top of the Great Orme is the largest prehistoric mine ever discovered. Nearly paved over for a car park, this site of…
18.33 MILES
Besides the City Walls, Chester's other great draw is the Rows, a series of two-level galleried arcades along the four streets that fan out in each…
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21.78 MILES
Laid out in 1875 and painstakingly landscaped over 150 years, Bodnant is one of Wales’ most beautiful gardens. Lord Aberconway of the McLaren family …
18.41 MILES
A good way to get a sense of Chester's unique character is to walk the 2-mile circuit along the walls that surround the historic centre. Originally built…
23.93 MILES
Museums are, by their very nature, like a still of the past, but the extraordinary International Slavery Museum resonates very much in the present. It…
Nearby Snowdonia & the Llŷn attractions
0.12 MILES
Dating from 1435, half-timbered Nantclwyd y Dre is thought to be the oldest town house in Wales. It originally belonged to a family of weavers and it…
0.33 MILES
This is an excellent gallery and arts hub. Aside from the three galleries – which do great work bringing the best of local photography, painting and…
10.12 MILES
The dignified ruins of this Cistercian abbey are a 2-mile walk north of Llangollen. Founded in 1201 by Madog ap Gruffydd, ruler of northern Powys, its…
11.31 MILES
The ever-visible ragged arches and tumbledown walls of Dinas Brân (Crow Castle) mark the remnants of a short-lived 13th-century castle of which it was…
11.56 MILES
Staffed by committed volunteers of the best sort, this diverting little museum of local history occupies a hexagonal building retaining some of the air of…
11.94 MILES
The 18th-century home of the Ladies of Llangollen (Irish aristocrat Lady Eleanor Butler and her companion, Sarah Ponsonby), Plas Newydd is an atmospheric…
7. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct & Canal World Heritage Site
13.71 MILES
The preeminent Georgian engineer Thomas Telford (1757–1834) built the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in 1805 to carry the canal over the River Dee. At 307m long, 3…
14.15 MILES
For a glimpse of the life of the British upper class in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the 'upstairs-downstairs' social hierarchy of their bygone world,…