Batenburg, a village on the Maas in the municipality of Wijchen, keeps two trees of almost the same girth about 40 metres apart at its Oude or St Victorkerk on Grotestraat. A horse chestnut from the 1900s measures 5.08 metres round and stands 26 metres tall in the church garden; a copper beech from the 1880s, 5.10 metres round, grows out of the paving beside the church. Both are on the national register of monumental trees, both were inspected in May 2026, and both can be seen for free.
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Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) · 120 years · Batenburg
At 5.08 metres round, the horse chestnut beside Batenburg's church has a thicker trunk than chestnuts decades older. The one behind the pond in Roosendaal's Emile van Loonpark, planted around 1870, measures 4.32. This one went in between 1900 and 1910, by the national tree register's band, which makes it about 120 years old.
It stands 26 metres tall in the church garden at Grotestraat 11A, beside the Oude or St Victorkerk, and the register records it as standing on its own rather than in a row. It has not had an entirely easy century. In 1992 a large limb blew out of the crown, and the register notes that the damage was worked on afterwards. An inspector saw the tree again in May 2026 and kept it on the list as monumental, so it is standing and watched.
May is the month to come, when the white flower candles stand up over the whole crown. In September and October the conkers come down in their spiny cases.
About 40 metres away, on the paved ground by the same church, stands a copper beech planted twenty years earlier with almost exactly the same girth, 5.10 metres. Two trees of that size at one small village church make the detour worth it.
Batenburg is a village on the Maas, about 16 kilometres west of Nijmegen, and the chestnut's crown stands right beside Grotestraat. Nobody has recorded who planted it; if you know, tell us.
Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica 'Atropunicea') · 140 years · Batenburg
This copper beech grows out of paving. The national tree register records the ground around it, by Batenburg's Oude or St Victorkerk, as closed paving, and out of it rises a trunk 5.10 metres round.
That is a big copper beech. The one at the gate of Nispen's cemetery near Roosendaal is 4.90 metres round, and that girth belongs to three stems fused into one. The Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen bands this tree's planting to the 1880s, so it is about 140 years old, and puts it at 20 metres tall.
It carries an old injury. A large limb once broke out of it, and the register notes that the wound has partly rotted, with the flat brackets of the artist's fungus, Ganoderma lipsiense, growing from it, and asks for regular checks. An inspector saw the tree in May 2026 and kept it on the list as monumental, so it is standing and watched.
Come in late October or early November, when the purple leaves turn copper before they fall. In May the other reason to be here is in flower: the horse chestnut in the church garden, about 40 metres away, planted twenty years later and almost exactly the same girth at 5.08 metres.
Batenburg is a village on the Maas in the municipality of Wijchen, about 16 kilometres west of Nijmegen. The register lists the beech as public and open to visitors, on the church square at Grotestraat 11A.