The Copper Beech behind the Amershof

It is at the back entrance of a function venue, which is a demotion, and it is the reason to look. A copper beech planted between 1880 and 1890 was put in by somebody laying out a garden. Nobody plants a purple beech at a service door. So this tree has been through the usual sequence for a city centre: a private garden, a change of ownership, a building extended over most of the ground, and the tree left standing in the leftover space that the extension did not need, which happened to be by the back door. It is a common story and it accounts for a striking share of the big old trees in any Dutch city centre. The ones that survive are rarely the ones that were treasured. They are the ones that were standing somewhere nobody wanted to build. What you get is a full grown copper beech in a small hard space on the Burgemeester De Widtstraat, dark and dense and considerably too large for its surroundings, which is a good look at what the species does when nothing restrains it but paving. Best in October and, for a different reason, in April, when the new leaves come out a translucent red before they darken.