A pine romance
WHY don’t more people know about Bedgebury? Britain’s National Pinetum in Kent spreads across 320 acres and holds the largest collection of conifers in the world. It is also one of the best places in England for a winter walk.
The 19th century was a good time for conifers. New species were flooding into Britain, especially from the Americas. The Victorians were smitten by travellers’ tales of redwoods and wellingtonias growing to unimaginable heights in California and they gasped at the strangeness of Chilean monkey puzzles, first known as fossil plants and bearing seeds that were 2in long. Many British landowners, from Bicton in Devon to Benmore in
