Bodnant was originally owned by the Lloyd family before passing by marriage to the Forbes family in 1700s.

In 1792, Colonel Forbes replaced the earlier house with the Italianate house. In 1820, Bodnant passed by marriage to William Hanmer of Bettisfield Park in Flintshire. Hanmer built the Old Mill and extended the garden.

The industrialist and chemist, Henry Davis Pochin bought Bodnant in 1875. He commissioned Edward Milner, a landscape gardener who had been apprentice to Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth, to develop the formal Victorian shrub garden near the house including the famous Laburnum Arch. Pochin planted numerous North American conifers in the Dell or Woodland Garden.

On Pochin’s death, the estate passed to his daughter Laura who married Charles McLaren. McLaren was later made Lord Aberconway (meaning mouth of the River Conwy) by Lloyd George while his wife spent much time campaigning for the women’s suffrage movement. Both loved gardening and they developed the upper formal terraced gardens.

Their son, Henry inherited Bodnant in 1934. Henry, 2nd Lord Aberconway, sponsored several plant expeditions of plant collectors such as Ernest Wilson and George Forrest and with his head gardener, Frederick Puddle, created the magnificent collection of rhododendrons and magnolias. President of the Royal Horticultural Society from 1931 until his death, Henry persuaded the National Trust to take on Bodnant in 1945 – it was the second garden after Hidcote to be accepted by the National Trust.

In the late 1990s, Hon Michael McLaren and his wife Caroline took over the running of the estate alongside the National Trust. A practising barrister, they spend much of their time in London.