Nearly three and a half centuries old, and barely two metres round: the Moeierboom is small on purpose. This large-leaved lime has been clipped into shape since it was planted, its side limbs trained flat at about 2.75 metres and its upward growth cut back once it climbs some three metres higher. The arborist Henry Kuppen calculates that the pruning held the trunk to about 0.8 centimetres of new girth a year, which is how a tree planted in 1675 measured 206 centimetres in 2019. An iron frame now carries its heavy limbs. The name is dialect. Moeier comes from moeder, mother, and the lime earned it by producing offspring from branches rooted where they touched the ground. It stands on the Markt of Etten-Leur, opposite the old town hall, on the spot where justice was administered in the Middle Ages. Vincent van Gogh lived here from 1881 and is said to have passed it daily; some accounts say he painted it. The date is not quite settled. A second plaque nearby says 1774, a century later, but the regional archive, the Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum, rejects it, and most sources keep 1675. In 2020 it was voted Dutch Tree of the Year, then placed sixth in Europe with 34,244 votes. Every winter the town crowdfunds the 7,500 or so lights it wears. It is seven minutes from Breda by train.
Markt 1, Etten-Leur, opposite the old town hall You can recognise it by its shape: a clipped lime with its limbs trained flat at about 2.75 metres and propped on an iron frame. It stands in the open on the Markt in Etten-Leur, opposite the old town hall.
Free, standing in the open on the Markt (the town square) in the centre of Etten-Leur, fenced only temporarily during public events
Etten-Leur railway station, 7 minutes by train from Breda (NS), then about a 10 minute walk to the Markt