In 1325 Alnarp came into the possession of a knight named Anders Pedersen, and then Aage Nielsen Ulfeldt in the early 15th century.

The Ulfeldt and the Thott families were members of the Scanian nobility.

After the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, king Charles X Gustav of Sweden gave the castle to a commandant of Malmö, Johan von Essen.

Today the castle houses offices and meeting rooms used by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

The castle park has the second greatest variety of trees in Sweden and is open to the public year-round.