The Great Linden of Argoules
How do I find it? You can recognise it by its rebuilt crown, still regrowing under care since a 1987 storm tore the original off. It stands on the open village square between the church and the chateau, opposite the Auberge du Gros Tilleul.
The storm of 15 and 16 October 1987 tore the crown clean off this lime. It has been rebuilding one ever since, slowly and under protective care, which is the plainest evidence anyone could ask for that the tree is still working. Four hundred years is the figure the sources reach for, on the belief that it dates from the start of the seventeenth century. A competing local account makes it a liberty tree planted in 1792 or 1793, when villages across France were putting them in, which would roughly halve its age. Both sources flag these as rival stories rather than one settled date, so the honest answer is that Argoules does not know how old its lime is. What the state decided is easier to pin down. The tree was classified as a botanical natural monument in 1934, and in 2016 it was labelled Arbre remarquable de France. It stands on the open square between the Saint-Germain church and the chateau, in the Baie de Somme country, free and unfenced. The village inn is named after it, the Auberge du Gros Tilleul, which tells you how long it has been the thing people navigate by here. No girth figure has ever been published. If you bring a tape, we would like the number.
- Species
- Small-leaved Lime (Tilia cordata)
- Location
- Place du village, Argoules, Somme, France (Argoules village square)
- Access
- Free, standing on the open village square (place du village) beside the church and chateau; no restriction.
- Getting there
- No station; reached by car, in the Baie de Somme area of the Somme department.
The button above opens directions in your maps app.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
Discover more
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
Get the appThis page was researched from a distance. If you know this tree, you know things we do not: the species, the age, the size, whether the photo shows the right tree, or that it is gone. Every field on this page can be corrected.
Correct a detail on this pageSuggest another tree