The Oak of the Hertenkamp

Assen's old deer park still has its stable in it, built in 1875, and this oak grows right by it at the pond, planted, most likely, when the park itself was laid out in 1841. It has spent the last fifteen years in visible decline, and unevenly. The whole north side of the crown is dying back, its trunk opened by wounds and cavities on the same side, while the south side is holding its own and still carries a healthy head of leaves. Which half a visitor notices first depends on which side of the pond they approach from. The Hertenkamp itself has been open parkland since the nineteenth century, one of the pockets Assen kept green as the town grew around it. Nobody has published a firmer date for the oak than the 1840s planting band the national tree register gives it, and the register is the only source that has looked closely enough to describe its condition at all. If you have watched that north side change, or know more of this tree's history, tell us.