Bodnant Garden

About this place

For about three weeks from late May into early June, a 55-metre tunnel turns into a dripping yellow ceiling and people queue beneath it with cameras as if it were a gallery rather than a garden. Bodnant's Laburnum Arch is reckoned the longest in Britain, and it is the reason more than a quarter of a million visitors a year come to this hillside above the Conwy valley. Miss the window and the garden is still worth your day, but know that the famous shot will be an ordinary green walkway. The story starts in 1874 with Henry Pochin, a Victorian industrial chemist who bought the land and began planting; his descendants, the Aberconway family, carried on for generations and bankrolled plant-hunting expeditions to the Himalaya, China and Chile. The result is 80 acres on two levels. Above, five formal Italianate terraces with rose beds and lily ponds look straight across to the Carneddau mountains. Below, the Dell is a wooded ravine where a stream runs beneath giant redwoods and Douglas firs; across the garden 22 trees are recorded as champions, the largest such collection in Wales. The Far End beyond is a quieter riverside garden with a willow maze and a natural play area for children. The drop from terraces to Dell is a real slope with many old stone steps, some without handrails. The garden knows this: the step-free Rose Walk, about 1.5 km, covers the terraces and the big views, and manual wheelchairs are loaned on arrival, so grandparents and pushchairs are fine if you stay up top. With children who can walk, go down into the Dell, where there are a kiosk, toilets and proper adventure among the trunks. Entry is £19 per adult and £9.50 per child, or £47.50 for a family of two adults and up to three children; no advance booking is needed even in summer. Parking is free, and there are two cafés and a plant centre. Getting there: Bodnant sits outside Snowdonia's inland towns, at Tal-y-Cafn on the A470, roughly 25 minutes' drive north of Betws-y-Coed, 15 minutes from Conwy and 20 from Llandudno. Without a car, take the train to Llandudno Junction, then the number 25 bus, which runs from Llandudno and stops at the gate. April to June is best for magnolias and rhododendrons and then the laburnum; October brings autumn colour. In winter the garden stays open but the planting is bare and hours can be shorter, so do not make it the centre of a day between November and February.