What is the oldest tree in Batenburg?
The oldest tree we map in Batenburg is the copper beech by the Oude or St Victorkerk on Grotestraat, which the national tree register bands to a planting in the 1880s, about 140 years ago. The horse chestnut in the church garden beside it is about twenty years younger and almost exactly as thick.
Both ages come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so each is a band: 1880 to 1890 for the copper beech, 1900 to 1910 for the horse chestnut. The register is the only written source for either tree, which is why both entries are flagged, but it is a recent one: an inspector saw both trees in May 2026 and kept them on the list as monumental. The beech carries a partly rotted wound where a limb broke out, with brackets of Ganoderma lipsiense, and the register asks for regular checks; the chestnut lost a large limb in 1992, and the damage was worked on afterwards. They stand about 40 metres apart at Grotestraat 11A, the chestnut in the church garden and the beech on the paved ground by the church. There is no railway station in Batenburg, which lies on the Maas about 16 kilometres west of Nijmegen, so come by car or bike.
One of Batenburg's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip.