Königslutter am Elm maps one tree: the Kaiser-Lothar-Linde, a lime lined inside with brickwork from 1975 surgery, standing on the meadow beside the town's great Romanesque cathedral. Legend gives it an emperor for a planter; dendrology gives it 850 to 900 years and leaves the emperor as a story. Published alone here because it is the destination, not because the town's research is finished.
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The Kaiser-Lothar-Linde
Large-leaved Lime (Tilia platyphyllos) · roughly 850 to 900 years · Königslutter am Elm town centre, beside the Kaiserdom
There is brickwork inside this lime. When tree surgeons treated the hollow trunk in 1975 they lined the cavity with masonry, fitted grilles over the openings and hung the crown from wire cables. That is ordinary veteran-tree care rather than a sign of a tree on its way out: the register still lists its health as vital.
The girth explains the effort. Baumkunde measured 13.32 metres round on 31 August 2021, against an older and rounder 12.50 that still circulates in print. Height is given as about 20 metres.
Legend hands the tree both a planter and a date: Emperor Lothar III, at the groundbreaking of the Kaiserdom beside it in 1135, which is where the name comes from and why people here say thousand-year linden. Dendrology puts it at 850 to 900 years, an estimate rather than a planting record, so the emperor stays a story.
What is documented is the work it did. This was a Gerichts- und Tanzlinde, the lime under which the court sat and the village danced, on the green beside one of Lower Saxony's great Romanesque churches. It has been under legal protection since 1956.
Königslutter am Elm has its own station on the Braunschweig to Helmstedt line, and the tree stands a short walk away on open ground, free, with a cathedral for a neighbour.
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