What is the oldest tree in Delft?

A black mulberry in the courtyard of Hofje van Pauw on Paardenmarkt, planted in 1707 when the almshouse was founded, roughly 319 years old.

Are Delft's ancient trees free to visit?

The mulberry's courtyard and Sint Agathaplein are both free public access. The Prinsentuin linden sits on Museum Prinsenhof's grounds, which are mid-renovation through 2027, so garden access may be temporarily restricted. TU Delft's Botanic Garden, home to the dawn redwoods, charges standard admission.

Why does Delft have a tree grown from a twig cut in Germany?

The Prinsentuin's winter linden, planted in 1956, grew from a cutting of the Wilhelmslinde in Dillenburg, the tree William of Orange grew up beside before leading the Dutch revolt and being assassinated in Delft in 1584. Supporters planted its cuttings at sites tied to his life.

What are the dawn redwoods at TU Delft's Botanic Garden?

Two Metasequoia glyptostroboides, a species known only from fossils until a living stand was found in China in 1944. Delft's specimens descend from the 1947 international seed collection that followed, making them among the first of their species grown in Europe.

Netherlands

Ancient Trees in Delft

Delft's oldest tree predates the Netherlands' own royal house by two centuries and still fruits every summer in a working almshouse courtyard. Its youngest tree is a graft from Germany, planted specifically to keep William of Orange's memory rooted in the city where he died. Four verified trees, one of them a living link to a 1944 discovery once thought extinct.

The Black Mulberry of Hofje van Pauw

Black Mulberry (Morus nigra subsp. multicaulus) · 319 years, planted 1707 · Binnenstad

The black mulberry in the courtyard of Hofje van Pauw has been fruiting since before the Dutch East India Company's Delft chamber was a century old. Tree specialist Jorn Copijn identified it in 2023 as Morus nigra subsp. multicaulus, a subspecies not officially recorded in Europe until 1821, more than a century after this specimen was already growing here. The likely explanation involves no botanist at all: the VOC had traded out of India, where the subspecies originates, since 1700, and Delft kept its own VOC chamber from 1602, so a sea captain or merchant returning home is the more probable route than any recorded introduction. At 319 years old it ranks among the oldest fruit trees documented in the Netherlands. The hofje itself, an almshouse Elisabeth Pauw endowed by testament in 1707 for women who had fallen on hard times, still houses residents today, now adults with intellectual disabilities, and the tree has outlived every one of them. Its courtyard gate on Paardenmarkt stays unlocked during the day. Visitors are asked to keep to the garden and skip the windows, since the houses ringing the tree are still lived in, not a museum.

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The Horse Chestnuts of Sint Agathaplein

Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum and Aesculus x carnea) · roughly 106 years, planted 1920 · Binnenstad

Five horse chestnuts on Sint Agathaplein, three white-flowered and two red, have stood outside the building where William of Orange was shot dead since 1920, planted as part of a coordinated square-wide planting rather than growing in on their own. The address carries more history than the trees themselves: Museum Prinsenhof occupies the former convent where William, leader of the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, was assassinated on the staircase in 1584, and the bullet holes are still in the wall inside. De Boominspecteurs, commissioned by the municipality to assess the square's trees ahead of a major renovation, confirmed the chestnuts as part of the site's protected planting. The renovation itself started in 2025 and is due to finish in 2027, with the museum closed for the duration, and the municipality has stated the square's monumental trees are being kept in the new design even where other, younger planting is not. What that means for a visitor right now is straightforward caution rather than a locked gate: Sint Agathaplein is a public square, but a live building site sits next to it, so the usual free, unrestricted access may be temporarily altered until the work finishes.

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The Willemslinde of the Prinsentuin

Winter Linden (Tilia cordata) · roughly 70 years, planted 1956 · Binnenstad

This winter linden did not grow from a seed that fell nearby. It grew from a twig cut from the Wilhelmslinde in Dillenburg, Germany, the tree under which William of Orange spent his childhood before he became the reluctant leader of the Dutch revolt and was assassinated in Delft in 1584. Supporters of the House of Orange took cuttings from the Dillenburg original and planted them at sites tied to William's life, and this one went into the Prinsentuin, the garden beside Museum Prinsenhof, in 1956. It is by a wide margin the youngest tree on this list, not even a century old against the mulberry's three, but it carries the most direct physical link to the man Delft is built around commemorating. The museum grounds are mid-renovation as of 2026, work that started in 2025 and runs to 2027, and the municipality has said the garden's historic trees are being kept rather than cleared for the new design. Until the museum reopens, treat the Prinsentuin as a garden worth checking on rather than one guaranteed open on any given day.

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The Dawn Redwoods of TU Delft's Botanic Garden

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) · age undocumented, among the first of the species grown in Europe after its 1944 rediscovery · Wippolder

Every dawn redwood alive today, anywhere in the world, descends from a single discovery: a species known only from 150-million-year-old fossils, presumed extinct, until a forester found a living stand of it in a remote Chinese valley in 1944. An international seed-collecting expedition followed in 1947, and botanical gardens across Europe, including several in the Netherlands, raised their first Metasequoia glyptostroboides from that single haul. Two of them now dominate the middle section of TU Delft's Botanic Garden, tall enough to be the garden's own reference point long before a visitor reaches the rarer specimens around them. Nobody recorded the exact planting year for these two, so no source gives a precise age, only the certainty that they belong to the first generation of the species ever grown outside China since its rediscovery, making them roughly seventy to eighty years old by extension rather than by record. The garden charges standard admission and sits a short walk from Delft's main station, a working research collection rather than a park, with the redwoods' feathery, deciduous foliage turning copper in autumn before it drops, unusual for a conifer and part of what first convinced botanists this was something genuinely new.

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Frequently asked

What is the oldest tree in Delft?: A black mulberry in the courtyard of Hofje van Pauw on Paardenmarkt, planted in 1707 when the almshouse was founded, roughly 319 years old.
Are Delft's ancient trees free to visit?: The mulberry's courtyard and Sint Agathaplein are both free public access. The Prinsentuin linden sits on Museum Prinsenhof's grounds, which are mid-renovation through 2027, so garden access may be temporarily restricted. TU Delft's Botanic Garden, home to the dawn redwoods, charges standard admission.
Why does Delft have a tree grown from a twig cut in Germany?: The Prinsentuin's winter linden, planted in 1956, grew from a cutting of the Wilhelmslinde in Dillenburg, the tree William of Orange grew up beside before leading the Dutch revolt and being assassinated in Delft in 1584. Supporters planted its cuttings at sites tied to his life.
What are the dawn redwoods at TU Delft's Botanic Garden?: Two Metasequoia glyptostroboides, a species known only from fossils until a living stand was found in China in 1944. Delft's specimens descend from the 1947 international seed collection that followed, making them among the first of their species grown in Europe.
More on the oldest tree: What is the oldest tree in Delft? The full answer, with map and directions.
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Walk all 4 trees about 2.3 km, 31 min on foot