The Secret Garden (2020)

Tucked away in the foothills of Snowdonia, Bodnant Garden was created by a pillar of Victorian society, a scientist and politician with a passion for plants...

Henry Pochin had made his name, and fortune, with two big ideas: the discovery of a distillation process to turn Victorian brown-coloured soap to white, and the production of alum cake, in great demand in the paper-making and dyeing industry.

After many industrious years in Manchester, he, along with his wife Agnes Heap, who was at the forefront of the progressive movement for women’s suffrage, “retired” to Bodnant in 1874.

They set about remodelling Bodnant Hall and developing the gardens to display his collection of exotic trees and shrubs, enlisting the skills of landscape designer Edward Milner.

With its hillside setting, the garden’s 32 hectares drop dramatically from manicured lawns and flower-filled terraces, through buzzing wildflower meadows and glades, into dells of water gardens and trees.

No wonder the producers of The Secret Garden (2020), starring Colin Firth and Julie Walters, fell in love with this otherworldly valley and chose it as a key location for the film.

Cared for by the National Trust since 1949, Bodnant is most famous for its grand laburnum arch, which bursts into a riot of yellow cascading flowers towards the end of May.

Keen to capture it in its glory, filmmakers were on “laburnum-watch” to achieve the perfect shot.

Go to nationaltrust.org.uk/ bodnant-garden (under current

Welsh Government legislation National Trust properties in Wales are only open to Welsh residents and to groups of four or fewer, excluding children below 11, unless from the same household).