What is the oldest tree in Königslutter am Elm?
The Kaiser-Lothar-Linde, on the meadow beside the Kaiserdom collegiate church. Dendrology puts it at 850 to 900 years; legend names Emperor Lothar III as its planter in 1135, which is a story rather than a record. It is the only tree mapped here, published alone under the single-tree exception.
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, ordinary veteran-tree care rather than a sign of decline; the register still lists its health as vital. The girth explains the effort: 13.32 metres round on a 2021 measurement, against an older, rounder 12.50 that still circulates in print, and about 20 metres tall. 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 still 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: 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, under legal protection since 1956.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.