The Heilige Eik (Holy Oak) of Den Hout
How do I find it? You can recognise it by its single living branch forming the whole crown, the rest hollowed out by an old lightning strike. It stands at the road junction between Vrachelen and Den Hout, fitted with metal supports against the wind.
A lightning strike about two centuries ago hollowed this oak out and left it open down one side. One living branch now forms the entire crown, and Omroep Brabant reports it leafs out densely every summer regardless. How old it is depends on who you ask, and the disagreement is a real one rather than a sloppy one. nl.wikipedia says most experts take today's tree to be a sixteenth-century planting on the site of an earlier medieval Heilige Eik, first named in a land deed of 1353. Joris Hellevoort, a forester with Het Utrechts Landschap who has studied it, argues instead that it is one continuous tree planted around 1250, which would put it near 750 years old and possibly make it the oldest living oak in the country. His case has been covered by national news. Nobody has settled it. Either way the ground is older than the tree. The name points to a probable pre-Christian tree shrine on the same spot, and the oak appears on the mayoral chain of office of Oosterhout. It is not a big tree: about four metres round and 13 metres tall, standing at a plain road junction between Vrachelen and Den Hout with a marker sign beside it. Oosterhout has been fitting metal supports to keep it from snapping in high wind. It came second in a regional tree of the year contest, which for a tree running on one branch is a respectable result.
- Species
- Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur)
- Girth
- 4 m
- Location
- Vrachelsestraat, at the corner with Achterstraat, Den Hout (Den Hout, Oosterhout, Noord-Brabant)
- Access
- Free. Stands at an ordinary road junction between the hamlet of Vrachelen and the village of Den Hout, with its own marker sign; visible and reachable from public roads at all times.
- Getting there
- Den Hout village, near Oosterhout; nearest station Oosterhout, then bus or bike to the village.
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Sources
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