The next place we went to on our 2025 holiday to North Wales was Bodnant Garden. It’s another National Trust property, and consists of the formal gardens attached to the larger Bodnant Estate.
Bodnant Garden is located to the south of where we were staying, in the Conwy Valley. The garden itself began to be developed in 1874 (so just over 150 years ago), when the Pochin family bought the estate at auction. Over time, the garden was extended multiple times, and is now home to a number of prize-winning trees. It came into the National Trust’s care in 1949, but the rest of the Bodnant Estate remains family-owned.
If you look at the prices for Bodnant Garden, you’ll see that they’re towards the higher end of the scale compared to some National Trust properties. That’s no accident – Bodnant Garden is huge, and we ended up spending all day here. Being as it was the summer holidays, there was a Wallace and Gromit Augmented Reality Trail running, although today was its last day, sorry. Our nine-year-old really enjoyed doing the trail, which included some hands-on activities too.
The Wallace and Gromit trail took us to the far end of the site, and then we made our way steadily back along the stream that flows through it. There’s lots to see – even if you’re not a big horticulturalist, it’s still very pretty.
In all, we probably saw about two thirds of what was there – we missed some of the fringes as it is just so big. Indeed, there is more than one café there; one at the entrance, and another near the Old Mill towards the middle of the site. It’s definitely somewhere I’d consider going to again, and taking a different route around.
Accessibility
You enter the site at the top, and then there are slopes down to the stream – some more gentle than others. The map shows a couple of step-free routes that encompass most of the site, but there are some steep slopes. Most of the paths are gravel.
There are two electric car charging sockets in the car park. On the plus side, they’re both completely free to use, however, one is a medium-speed 7 kW Type-2 charger, and one is just a 3-pin plug. We ended up having to use the latter with our granny charger, but then we were there all day, and it was free after all. It managed to charge our Nissan Leaf up from 31% to 59% over around five hours.
The nearest railway station is Tal-y-Cafn on the Conwy Valley Line, however, it’s a 40 minute walk, it’s a request stop, and there are only 6 trains per day (4 on Sundays). If arriving by public transport, a better bet is the number 25 bus, which runs from Llandudno and calls at Llandudno Junction station. That being said, there’s still only one bus every two hours.
Nearby attractions
The Bodnant Estate also runs an adjacent garden centre, and Bodnant Welsh Food is a short drive away. We nipped into the shop there, although it was rather expensive and didn’t have a great range.
On the other side of the valley, and about a ten minute drive away, are the Conwy Water Gardens. We didn’t go as the TripAdvisor reviews aren’t great; it seems like somewhere that used to be better than it is now.