In the 15th century Agnes de Bedgebury, sister and heir of John (died 1424) married John Colepeper,[2] whose Colepeper heirs, financed by mining clay-ironstone on the estate, were resident until at the time of the restoration of Charles II, and who created an ornamental park on the Bedgebury estate.

The estate later passed to the Stephenson family, who retained it until it was left to a Miss Peach, who sold it in 1789 to John Cartier, Governor of Bengal and High Sheriff of Kent,[1] who improved the plantings and the house.

A site at the southern end of Bedgebury Park was chosen, centred on Marshall's Lake and a stream-filled valley.

Development of the collection was managed by the Kew botanist William Dallimore, a world-renowned expert on conifers.

(W. Dallimore, 1923)[5] The pinetum holds 10,000 specimens of conifers and other species that grow in temperate zones, including 7,000 trees, as living gene banks and as a genetic resource for future restoration programmes.

[6] Bedgebury nursery was the first to germinate Vietnamese golden cypress (Xanthocyparis vietnamensis) and chichibu birch (Betula chichibuensis) seeds in cultivation.