So after an extremely busy day in work, it was time to shoot up to Bodnant Garden for a quiet evening with friends and cameras.
Bodnant Garden is not far from Conwy and is a huge place, with its lavish designed gardens stretching for almost 80 acres, the National Trust gardens are lovely to walk around in peace and tranquillity with only the sound of the wind through the trees and the birds in harmony with nature.
The aim of the trip to Bodnant was to do a little photo shoot of the various flowers etc that are contained within the gardens, although the weather was a little over cast, it was still wonderful to see the wonderful colours that burst through the light and dark greens of the trees and bushes.
From bright vibrant reds to luscious pale pinks and white, with the odd hint of blue bells here and there to show the glorious pallette that nature loves to use.
Having an hour and a half after work, wasn’t enough to spend in Bodnant Garden to see everything, but it was nice to arrive there and just relax, there is so much more to just walking around Bodnant Garden, with its rises and falls of the pathways leading through them from the main house and out in to the woods.
We headed downward from the main house and made our way to The Old Mill, where we found a lively stream running under a bridge in the woodland, here we decided to play with some photos of the water and slowing it down, so that the water looked like a mist breaking across small rocks in the stream.
Begun in 1875, it is the creation of four generations of Aberconways and is divided into two parts: the upper level (around the house) features huge Italianate terraces, specimen trees and formal lawns, with paths descending to at lower level “The Dell” with a wooded valley, stream and wild garden below. Included within the Dell are the Old Mill, the mill pond with the mill race and an attractive spillway waterfall into the River Hiraethlyn, to give the delightful babbling brook through the Dell its proper name. – Source Wikipedia
As it was Wednesday, the Garden allows dogs in from 5:30 – 7:30, now you would think that this would have the Garden full of dogs running riot, but no, the owners have the digs on their leads and under complete control, with the odd bark now and again, but nothing too noisy to break the tranquility of the evening.
Although it may seem a little expensive to enter, with adults from £9.50 (£10.45 with gift aid), but personally, I think it is well worth the entrance fee, the amount of work that goes in to the upkeep of the gardens is phenomenal and is a constant ongoing job to keep everything looking pristine and beautiful.
Not a place that small kids or those tech driven teenagers may enjoy, but for the rest of us that want somewhere to have a little peace and quiet, with somewhere lovely to walk around is idea.
But not only does it have the garden to look around it also has craft centre to look around as well, it’s a great day out and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and will certainly be going again.
If you would like to see more pictures from my visit to Bodnant Garden then check out my Bodnant Garden set of Flickr.
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
