inherited the property in 2003. He is a practising barrister and continues to act as garden manager. Troy Scott Smith took over as head gardener in 2006 and the position of head gardener was taken over in 2015 by John Rippin. The garden is designated Grade I on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales. "The Poem" Located in an area of the Shrub Borders within the garden, "The Poem" is the McLaren family mausoleum. It sits on an outcrop of rock at the end of the valley known as the Dell. Grade II-listed for architectural interest, it was designed by architects W J Green of London, whilst the spectacular marble inside was sculpted by Samuel Barfield of Leicester. The roof is slate, in a shallow pyramidal style with a parapet and octagonal turrets at each corner. Above the arched entrance with voussoirs supported on columns of red marble, is a sandstone band inscribed ‘The Poem’ in raised decorative lettering. Built in 1882 by the garden's founder, Henry Davis Pochin, as memorial to his children, four of whom died in infancy, the neo-gothic construction now contains busts and memorial tablets dedicated to the McLaren family members whose remains lie in the crypt beneath. These monuments are located in twenty arch-topped niches set into the interior walls of the building. The mausoleum was last used in 2003 following the death of the 3rd Baron Aberconway. Plants and plant hunters Bodnant Garden has an illustrious connection with 19th and early 20th century explorers, who brought back plants for which the garden is now world-famous, including four National Collections, of Rhododendron forrestii, Magnolia,Eucryphia and Embothrium species. Today the garden also has twenty two Champion Trees, noted for their age, height and horticultural merit. Henry Pochin's legacy to Bodnant was planting the garden's great conifers; the cedars on the Lily Terrace (from Africa and Middle East) and the Pinetum in the Dell which includes American and Asian conifers including Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas Fir) Pinus radiata, Sciadopitys verticella (Japanese Umbrella Pine), Chamaecyparis pisifera (Japanese false cypress and Sequoiadendron giganteum (Giant Redwood). The next phase of plant hunting was under Pochin's grandson Henry McLaren, 2nd Lord Aberconway who sponsored expeditions from the Edwardian period which brought in large numbers of rhododendrons, camellias and magnolias to Britain. Notable plant hunters connected to Bodnant Garden included Ernest Wilson, who travelled extensively in