What is the oldest tree in Antwerp?
Antwerp's oldest likely tree is a copper beech standing before the Sint-Willibrorduskerk in Berchem, protected as a monument since 1949 because it was probably planted as a liberty tree marking either the 1789 Brabant Revolution or Belgian independence in 1830. Either date makes it at least two centuries old, with a trunk just under five metres around. Nobody has ever settled which revolution it actually marks.
Two possible birthdates bracket this tree, and heritage assessors who protected it as a monument in 1949 never picked between them: 1789, the year the short lived Brabant Revolution threw off Austrian rule, or 1830, the year Belgium became a country in its own right. Both were the kind of moment 18th and 19th century Europeans marked by planting a tree rather than raising a monument, a vrijheidsboom, and this copper beech's size, a trunk just under five metres around and a canopy 32 metres wide, fits either timeline. It most likely spent its early decades inside the walled garden of the neighbouring rectory before that wall came down and left it standing in the open square people see today. Compared with cities that have a planting record or a precise girth estimate, Antwerp's oldest tree carries a two century margin of error with no written evidence to close it further. The nearest rival for oldest, the protected summer linden at Rivierenhof, has a documented park history stretching back further but no individual dating of its own. The beech stands in a public square in Berchem, free to see, no ticket required.
One of Antwerp's trees also appears in Trees With a Known Planting Date, a themed collection spanning several cities.