The Victoria Square London Plane

Victoria Square used to be Christchurch's market place before it became a park for a queen's anniversary. The city laid it out in 1896 and 1897 to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and this London Plane, 534 centimetres round, is the only one of its kind the register lists here. The square lived through the 2011 earthquake as a casualty rather than a shelter. It sat inside the Central City Red Zone, closed off entirely, and did not reopen to the public until stages beginning in November 2012, with restoration finished only in 2018. The tree waited out six years of fencing and rebuilding before anyone could stand under it again. It has neighbours with their own stories nearby, without being one of them: a row of weeping willows along the Avon grown from cuttings the early settler Francois Le Lievre brought to New Zealand, and a stand of limes planted by Dr James Irving in the 1880s known locally as The Limes. This plane, 20 metres tall and classed a veteran by the city, is the square's own answer, the widest trunk on its own ground rather than a cutting from somewhere else. No planting date survives for it either. If you can find one, tell us.