What is the oldest tree in Bruges?
The oldest tree in Bruges is most likely Den Olifant, a pollarded pedunculate oak standing where four parcels of land meet in the Paalbos woodland at Assebroek, about 3.5 kilometres southeast of the centre. Flanders' heritage inventory will not date it outright: it says only that 250 years or more is not out of the question, judged by comparing its girth with other oaks in the same wood. The oldest tree here with an actual date on it is the black poplar on the ramparts, planted in 1853.
Bruges is stone in the middle and trees around the edge, which is why nothing on this list stands on the Markt. The old ones are out where somebody had a use for them. Den Olifant was cut back to the same knuckle for generations at the corner of four parcels in the Paalbos, most likely on a parish boundary, and that pollarding is why it has stayed ten metres tall while its trunk reached 273 centimetres round. Flanders' heritage inventory measured it in April 2015 and declined to date it, saying only that 250 years or more is not out of the question by comparison with other oaks in the same wood; Flanders protected it as a monument the following year. The trees here that do carry dates are all deliberate plantings, which is the other half of the story. The ramparts were landscaped from the middle of the nineteenth century, and the black poplar went in during that work in 1853. Three silver limes followed at the Gentpoort in 1928, ten years after the armistice, planted as peace trees. A maple went into Canadaplein in 1947. Every one of those dates comes from the same heritage inventory.
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