The Cedar of Lebanon of Angerenstein

This cedar was planted while Angerenstein was still somebody's private country estate. The national register puts it in the ground between 1750 and 1800, which makes it the oldest tree in this corner of Arnhem by a clear margin, roughly 250 years. That is a long life for a Cedar of Lebanon in the Netherlands, and a long time to have watched the ownership change under it. Angerenstein was a buitenplaats for most of its existence. It opened to the public in 1921, and in 1941 the last private owners sold the whole estate to the municipality of Arnhem, which is why the question people usually ask about this park, whether you are allowed to walk in, has a flat answer. Yes, free, any day. Under history the register has written nothing. A cedar does not really need it. The species carries its own architecture, tiers of flat horizontal branch plates stacked one above another, which is exactly why estate owners planted them in front of houses in the first place, and why this one still reads as a deliberate decision two and a half centuries later. It is one of four monumental trees within about a hundred metres here, alongside a tulip tree, a Japanese maple and an oak by the pond. Do them as a single loop, eight minutes' walk from Arnhem Presikhaaf station.