Baobabs & Other Veterans
Several historic burial sites exist within a few minutes'
walk of Canterbury Christ Church University and
contain a remarkable range of specimen trees
that are used for teaching and local community
engagement with nature. St. Martin's Church is
part of the Canterbury UNESCO World Heritage
Site and is the oldest parish church in contin-
uous use in the English-speaking world. At St.
Martin's Church, St. Augustine worshipped with
Queen Bertha of Kent in the seventh century.
By contrast, you have the mid-nineteenth-century
Church of St. Gregory the Great, designed by George
Gilbert Scott, the most renowned church architect
of the time. St. Gregory's contains fine examples
of both common and Irish yew, a magnificent holm
oak (Quercus ilex) and two bizarre "baobab" planes
(Photo 4), so named because in their stoutness they
resemble the Adansonia trees of Africa and Australia.
It is generally accepted that these "baobabs" are
London planes (Platanus x acerifolia), although there
have been suggestions that they are Oriental planes
(Platanus orientalis, a parent tree of the London
plane), and that their misshapen boles are the
result of a viral infection. Seven of these "baobab"
planes have been identified within Canterbury,
including on the grounds of the world-famous
Canterbury cathedral and the Norman castle. It
is thought that the trees were established by the
Victorian plantsman William Masters (1796–1874),
and there is a suggestion, unproven, that they were
deliberately planted to represent a cruciform.
Photo 4. "Baobab" planes, generally accepted as London planes
(Platanus x acerifolia) in St. Gregory's churchyard, Canterbury (UK).
18 CityTREES
