Bedgebury National Pinetum

This beautiful location is home to the most complete conifer collection in the world, with more than 10,000 trees thriving across 320 acres. Our task was to restore, renovate and revamp the main lakeside visitor centre, atrium café and surrounding premises.

With various obstacles to overcome and targets to help our client reach, our team relished the wide range of property development tasks at hand. This encompassed both hard and soft landscaping, custom carpentry, building renovations, extensions and conversions and installation of many new facilities around the site.

After conducting a thorough survey and consultation with the visitor centre proprietors, our architect drafted and presented a comprehensive property renovation plan. The Bedgebury National Pinetum directorate were delighted with the architectural and structural drawings, expressing a strong keenness for us to begin the work.

View Proposed Plans View Gallery

The new centre now boasts a totally enclosed central atrium with automatic doors, large glass windows looking out onto the lake and access to the new and improved Bedgebury Cafe. Over 4km of English western red cedar was used to clad the inside and outside of the centre. In time the colours will change as the wood weathers back but for now the new timbers look magnificent in the spring sunshine! 

Whilst working on the cafe we were also asked to construct two new pieces of play equipment within the Pinetum. The first is a replacement of the hugely popular rope swinger, which after 10 years of  service had to be dismantled so that a bigger and stronger version could be installed. The new rope swinger can hold up to 12 persons and was opened in time for the May half term holidays. The second piece of equipment is a brand new addition to the forest and is aptly called 'The Ant's Nest'. It is the fourth of it's kind in the country and is supported by a Douglas fir that was grown within the Pinetum. The ant's nest stands over 3.5m high and has a mixture of external climbing areas, internal ladders and numerous 'windows' with which children can explore. Check out the progress of both items in our Gallery section...

View Rope Swing Gallery View Ant's Nest Gallery