What is the oldest tree in Arnhem?

De Poortwachters, three sweet chestnuts standing together at the entrance to Kasteel Zijpendaal in Gulden Bodem park, are the best-documented candidates for Arnhem's oldest tree, planted somewhere between 1650 and 1700 and now measured at roughly 750, 718 and 472 centimetres around. A local legend credits Karel van Egmond, the last independent Duke of Guelders, with planting them personally; the dates rule that out, since he died in 1538, more than a century before these trees are estimated to have gone in. What the legend gets right is the trees' role: everyone who has visited the castle since has had to walk between them, which is likely how they earned their name. A competing candidate is the Huissensedijk plane tree beside the Bonifatiuskerk in Elden, whose age is less settled: estimates for its planting range from 1725 to 1800, a spread wide enough that on its earliest possible date it could be older than the chestnuts, and on its latest, younger than the poplar. Given that uncertainty, the chestnuts are the safer answer. All three stand in a park bought whole by the municipality in 1899 and open, free, every day.