Le Chêne de Tronjoly (Ar Ven Der)
Tronjoly, Bulat-Pestivien
Around 1750 a hermit named Le Graet is said to have moved into this tree, keeping a bed, a table and a library inside the hollow trunk. That gives some idea of the space. The measurements agree on the scale and not much else: 12 metres round in 2008, 12.5 in 2015, and a reported 13 before the trunk split into a living half and a standing dead stub. Ted Green of the Ancient Tree Forum, quoted by the commune and by French dendrologists, reckons it may be the largest oak trunk in continental Europe. Its age depends on who you ask, and the gap is not a detail. That same reading puts it at 1300 to 1600 years. A 2015 account of the tree settles nearer 900 to 1200. Neither can be checked against the rings, because there is no longer enough trunk left to count. Bretons call it Ar Ven Der, the oak tree, as though there were no others. It stands by itself where three slopes meet above a stream running down to the Leguer, classified an arbre remarquable since April 2004. In February 2015 oak beams, jointed by mortise and tenon, were set under the heaviest lower limbs to stop them tearing away. The land around it is a working farm rather than a park, and wooden barriers mark how close a visitor may go.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Tronjoly hamlet, near the Bodeillo farm, Bulat-Pestivien, 22160 Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, France
You can recognise it by the trunk, about 12 metres round and split into a living half and a standing dead stub, with oak beams propping the lowest limbs. It stands alone beside a stream at Tronjoly, inside wooden barriers.
On private land (a farm at Bodeillo), but the owner has stated publicly and repeatedly over at least a decade (2015-2016 sources) that the tree remains open to visitors as long as they are respectful and stay within the marked area: wooden barriers delimit the authorised viewing zone and there is streamside parking a short walk away. No booking, ticket or doorbell needed, but it is someone's working farm rather than a park, so state this plainly rather than calling it simply 'free'.
Rural and remote, 'deep in Brittany' per one source, a few km northeast of Callac. No public transport reaches the site; a car is required, with parking near the tree itself as described by visitors.
In fruit
September to October: acorns drop, and a good mast year buries the ground in them
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.