What is the oldest tree in Amersfoort?
The oldest tree in Amersfoort is the oak at the Hertekop, on the Arnhemseweg where it crosses the Dodeweg beside the A28 slip road, which the national register places in a planting band of 1750 to 1800, so between about 225 and 275 years old. The crossroads takes its name from a hunting chalet that once stood there with deer antlers fixed to it. That building became an inn, then a well known meeting place and a starting point for walks and outings, and then it disappeared, when a southern ring road was laid around the city and later joined to a new trunk road from Utrecht. The junction that resulted bears no resemblance to the place the tree was planted in. The oak is the only part of the Hertekop still standing.
Ages here come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so every age on this page is a band and none is narrowed to look precise. The register is the 2024 edition and is the single source for these trees, which is why they are all flagged. One tree that would have been on this page is not: a plane on the schoolyard of the Sint Jorisschool, which is a fine old tree and which we leave out because sending adult strangers onto school grounds is not something a page like this should do. Where the register describes a tree's condition we pass that on, as with the weeping lime in Park Schothorst, whose root flare is walked on constantly and which the register thinks is standing up to it. Pins marked approximate mean we know the place and not the trunk.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.