Roses at Bodnant Garden

The Top Rose Terrace at Bodnant Garden

Experience the intoxicating sights, scents and sounds of our famous Italianate terraces, now blossoming more beautifully than ever as several years of conservation work come to fruition.

Bodnant Garden's five formal Italianate terraces were designed and built in the new Arts and Crafts style between 1904 and 1914 by Henry McLaren of the donor family. His mother Laura McLaren, Lady Aberconway, influenced the planting with her passion for native herbaceous and cottage garden flowers.

Henry created two rose gardens, upper and lower, linked by a series of garden rooms, ornamental pools and pergola walkways. Over the following decades he added adornments such as classical statues and the 18th century fountain on the Croquet Terrace. In 1938 he added the finishing flourish to the Canal Terrace; he bought the derelict Pin Mill building at auction and moved it from its Gloucestershire home to Bodnant Garden.

Bodnant Garden's Lower Rose Terrace pictured around the 1920s
Black and white photograph of woman sitting in rose garden circa 1920
Bodnant Garden's Lower Rose Terrace pictured around the 1920s

In more recent times the terrace gardens have been enjoying some TLC by our garden team. The Top Rose Terrace was renovated in 2006 and the Lower Rose Terrace in 2012. Old beds were replanted with fragrant English Roses, many from the award winning David Austin collection, which provide a continuous display from July to October. Flower beds have been updated too in recent years - the White Garden in 2014, the Himalayan Poppy Bed in 2015 and a new design for the long Canal Terrace borders flowered for the first time in 2018. 

Conservation work

In 2013 the exterior of the Pin Mill itself underwent extensive repair work and the renovation of the interior, upper parlour room was finished in 2019.