The Horse Chestnut of Batenburg Church

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.