The Laburnum Arch at Bodnant Garden: A Golden Tunnel Near Betws-y-Coed For three short weeks each year, the Bodnant Garden Laburnum Arch turns heads across Wales. Golden chains of laburnum flowers hang from a 55 metre tunnel of trained trees. Visitors travel from across the country just to walk beneath it. The arch sits around 12 miles from Bryn Bella, making it an easy addition to a day out from Betws-y-Coed. A Victorian Vision Almost 150 Years Old Henry Davis Pochin bought the Bodnant estate at auction in 1874. He was a Victorian industrial chemist with a passion for plants. Within a few years, he had transformed plain lawns and pasture into something extraordinary. Pochin hired landscape designer Edward Milner to lay out the formal gardens. Milner had trained under the great Joseph Paxton, designer of the Crystal Palace. He brought that same ambition to the Conwy Valley. Together, they planted the Laburnum Arch in 1880. Nearly a century and a half later, it still blooms in the same spot. The Longest Golden Tunnel in Britain The arch stretches 55 metres along a raised terrace near the garden entrance. Historians believe it to be the oldest and longest laburnum arch of its kind in Britain. Its design borrows from the pergola walkways that graced European gardens in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Wide gravel paths run beneath the arch. As a result, wheelchair and pushchair users can enjoy it just as easily as everyone else. When the Laburnum Arch Blooms The display usually peaks towards the end of May and into early June, though the exact timing depends on the weather each year. During that short window, roughly 50,000 visitors pass beneath the arch to see it at its best. Because of the crowds, the National Trust recommends booking ahead for the busiest dates and opens the garden for longer hours during peak bloom. Outside those few weeks, Bodnant still rewards a visit. Rhododendrons and magnolias light up the wider garden from March through June, and the Dell, with its Waterfall Bridge and calm reflective pool, offers colour and shade at almost any time of year. Beyond the Arch: A Garden of National Importance Bodnant Garden holds five National Collections, including magnolia, embothrium and eucryphia. Many of its rarest specimens grew from seed that plant hunters George Forrest and Ernest Wilson collected on expeditions through China in the early twentieth […]
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