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.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Vrachelsestraat, at the corner with Achterstraat, Den Hout
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.
Den Hout village, near Oosterhout; nearest station Oosterhout, then bus or bike to the village.
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.
- In the official register: Landelijk Register van Monumentale Bomen (Bomenstichting), no. 1680745
- bomenbieb.nl
- nl.wikipedia.org
- omroepbrabant.nl