A Lifetime’s Work
THE ARBORETUM TAKES ITS NAME FROM A HOUSE BUILT IN 1911 by a Reverend Banner whose fiancée had agreed to marry him on the condition that he built a copy of her Congleton home named The Quinta (the name derives from the Portuguese for a ‘country house’).
One morning in May 1948, Joyce and Bernard Lovell, who were house hunting, heard that a house in Swettenham village was for sale, went there and found that the house was to be auctioned that very afternoon. By the end of the day the house and a few acres of land were theirs. Bernard and Joyce began to plant trees and to develop an arboretum which, following further purchases of land, today extends to 28 acres, with a further 10 acres of nature reserve. It includes ancient woodland, a wildflower meadow and grassland, and commands stunning views of the Dane valley.
As honours and awards recognised his achievements in the then new science of radio astronomy, additional areas and plantings were developed to commemorate these events in his life and today the honours and achievements of Professor Sir Bernard Lovell, Fellow of the Royal Society, are marked by the names of grassy avenues and glades. His great radio telescope at Jodrell Bank can be glimpsed from the arboretum through the trees which he planted.
Sir Bernard Lovell is President of Tatton Garden Society, which now owns and manages The Quinta
