The Copper Beech of the Nieuwe Kerk

This copper beech is what Delft planted after it filled in a canal. Between 1915 and 1920, the national register of monumental trees records, the city filled in part of the water along the Oude and Nieuwe Langedijk to open a better approach to the Markt from the east. The same works cost the city something the register calls het klokje, the little bell, behind the Nieuwe Kerk. And with the new layout came this tree, on the eastern edge of the church garden. That makes it about 105 to 115 years old, young as monumental trees go. Its claim is the record: few trees in Delft can name the public works that put them where they stand. The church behind it is the one where the House of Orange buries its dead, William of Orange among them, and its tower looks down the length of the Markt. The beech has spent its whole life in that tower's shadow. The garden belongs to the church, and the register lists the tree as visible but not open to visit, so this is one to see from the street at the corner of the Oude Langedijk and the Vrouwenregt. In leaf it is not hard to pick out: a copper beech holds its purple-red colour from spring into summer. The register gives no girth or height. If you know what the klokje was, or have measured the trunk, tell us.