The St Lawrence Lime Tree was a at the

St Lawrence Ground The St Lawrence Ground is a cricket ground in Canterbury, Kent. It is the home ground of Kent County Cricket Club and since 2013 has been known as The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, due to commercial sponsorship. It is one of the oldest grounds ...

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It was located within the boundary ropes of the

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

field which required special rules. In 2005, it was broken in two in high winds.

History

It is not known when the tree was planted, but it was fully grown by 1847, when the

was opened. The cricket ground was built around the tree, which was located within the boundary ropes. As a result of the St Lawrence Ground being the only first-class ground with a tree in the playing area, special laws were enacted regarding the tree. These laws may have been instigated pre-1910 where a Hampshire County Cricket Club batsman was claimed to be caught by a Kent County Cricket Club fielder off the tree. The laws stated that if the ball hit the tree, it was scored as a four even if it would have gone on to score six otherwise and no batsman could be caught out from a rebound off the tree. It was viewed as a challenge to hit a ball over the tree; only four batsmen, Arthur Watson,

Learie Constantine Learie Nicholas Constantine, Baron Constantine, (21 September 19011 July 1971) was a West Indian cricketer, lawyer and politician who served as Trinidad and Tobago's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and became the UK's first black pee ...

, Jim Smith and Carl Hooper, managed it.

Death and replacement

In 1999, the St Lawrence Lime was diagnosed with heartwood fungus and given an expected lifespan of 10 years despite

pollarding Pollarding is a pruning system involving the removal of the upper branches of a tree, which promotes the growth of a dense head of foliage and branches. In ancient Rome, Propertius mentioned pollarding during the 1st century BCE. The practice o ...

aimed to promote growth. In preparation, a replacement ''Tilia'' sapling was planted at the St Lawrence Ground by E. W. Swanton. Weakened by the fungus, the trunk of the tree was broken in two by high winds on 8 January 2005, leaving a stump. Kent initially planned to use the replacement to take the place of the St Lawrence Lime and had permission from the

Marylebone Cricket Club Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence ...

to do so. However, because the replacement was still small and was deemed unable to take a cricket ball and being less visible to players, it was planted in the playing area outside the boundary ropes instead of inside to take the place of the St Lawrence Lime in a ceremony including former club captain Chris Cowdrey.

References

{{Coord, 51.26758, N, 1.09279, E, display=title Individual trees in England Kent County Cricket Club Canterbury 2000s individual tree deaths Cricket culture Individual lime trees