This yew was one of the first trees written into the Dutch register of monumental trees when it opened in 1983. It is widely called the oldest yew in the Netherlands. Nobody has settled that, and the register itself does not make the claim. What the register does say is that the tree went in somewhere between 1600 and 1700, which puts it at three to four centuries. Yew grows so slowly that girth tells you very little about a trunk this size, and it lives so long that a Dutch specimen of this age is unusual rather than remarkable in its own species. It grew up inside the grounds of landgoed Rhederoord, the country estate whose park became the Brantsenpark, so the houses arrived at the tree rather than the other way round. A storm took the original top out decades ago. A resident writing to the register in 2018 remembered photographs of the tree from 1960 and 1961 and described the damage. Somebody once cut a flame shape out of the trunk, which showed that the wood inside is partly hollow. In an old yew that is ordinary rather than a warning. It stands in the front garden of a private house on the Brantsenpark, with an information post in front of it.
From people who stood here
No notes yet
Did you visit the tree? Leave a note for the next visitor.
Getting there
Brantsenpark 11, De Steeg
You can recognise it by the flame shape cut out of the trunk and the flat top where a storm took the original crown. It stands in the front garden on the Brantsenpark, with an information post beside it.
Free to look at from the street. The yew stands in the front garden of a private house on the Brantsenpark, with a municipal information post in front of it; the garden itself is not open, so this is a look from the pavement rather than a walk to the trunk.
De Steeg, in the municipality of Rheden about 11 km northeast of Arnhem. Trains stop at De Steeg-Laag Soeren, a short walk away.
In fruit
September to November: red arils on female trees, the only part that is not poisonous
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
- In the official register: Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen (Bomenstichting), no. 1677451
- bomenbieb.nl
- Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen (Bomenstichting), entry nr 1677451, one of the first trees added to the register in 1983