Sambeek maps one tree: the Linde van Sambeek, the thickest lime in the Netherlands at 7.97 metres round, standing beside the through-road at the south end of the village. Storms took its tiers in 1884 and nearly all of its crown in 1901, after which it was expected to die. Instead a new stem grew from the old roots inside the hollow trunk, and that stem is now part of the crown. In 2025 the municipality decided to move the road to give its roots more room.
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Foto: RuudSteg (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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The Linde van Sambeek
Common Lime (Tilia x europaea) · roughly 350 to 500 years · Sambeek, Land van Cuijk, Noord-Brabant
There is a second trunk inside this hollow one, and it is the same tree.
The Linde van Sambeek started out as a three-tiered ceremonial lime. A storm took the tiers in 1884 and a second storm in 1901 took nearly the whole crown, after which everybody expected it to die. Instead a new stem grew up out of the old root system, inside the shell of the hollow trunk. That stem is now about 2.5 metres round on its own and carries part of the crown standing today.
The outer trunk measured 7.97 metres round in 2004, which makes it the thickest lime in the Netherlands, and locally it is called the oldest as well. Nobody can settle that: the trunk is hollow, so there are no rings to count, and 350 to 500 years is the honest range. It is listed in the national monumental tree register as number 1679463.
The village has kept paying for it. A restoration in 1973 and 1974 came out of municipal funds and brought cable anchors, iron trunk supports and root-zone treatment. Stichting Wereldboom declared it a World Tree in 2015 and has guided its pruning since. In 2025 Land van Cuijk decided to realign and narrow the road running past it, to give the roots more room.
That is a municipality moving a road for a tree.
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