The Parr Tree at Trent Bridge — The Elm Hit for Six for 28 Summers

Trent Bridge was laid out by William Clarke in 1838. The trees along the Bridgford Road boundary were original features of the riverside meadow. Parr's leg-side hitting matured in the late 1840s, by which time he was already a senior Notts player.

Parr's leg-hit was the most distinctive stroke in the country. The trajectory of his strokes meant that hits beyond the rope landed regularly in the boundary trees on the Bridgford Road side; one elm in particular caught the ball most often.

Trent Bridge had been laid out by William Clarke in 1838 on land at his wife's Trent Bridge Inn. The pitch was set out west to east, with a row of trees along the southern boundary on the Bridgford Road side; one of these elms stood close enough to the playing area that a hard leg-side hit reached its branches. George Parr's signature stroke — described by Caffyn as a leg-hit in a 'sort of half-circle' off the front foot — was so consistent in direction that the elm was struck regularly through 28 consecutive summers, from his arrival at Trent Bridge in the late 1840s to his retirement around 1870. The tree became a Trent Bridge landmark in his lifetime and was widely known as Parr's Tree by the early 1860s. After Parr's death in 1891 a branch was laid on his coffin and buried with him — the first great example of a cricketer being commemorated by his ground in a personal way. The tree itself stood until severe gales at New Year 1976 finally brought it down. The fallen elm was turned into hundreds of souvenir bats and tables for the President's Room at Trent Bridge. The Parr Stand, opened in 1955, had already been built in front of the tree.

“George Parr's tree was christened after the great Notts batsman who hit the ball over, through or round the tree for 28 consecutive summers.”

The Parr Stand replaced the visible position of the tree as a memorial. The wood from the felled elm was distributed among Nottinghamshire members and used to make commemorative bats, walking canes and the President's Room tables that still stand today.