What is the oldest tree in Deventer?
The oldest tree in Deventer is the Kozakkenlinde on the Kozakkenweg at Diepenveen, which the national register places in a planting band of 1600 to 1700 and, more specifically, suggests was planted in 1614 after the death of the Hijligen eik, the holy oak that had stood in the same spot. Its name comes from a later episode: during the French occupation of Deventer in 1813 the tree is said to have been used as a lookout by Cossacks fighting against the French. Both of those are traditions carried by the register rather than facts we can prove, and it cites an article by Wim de Weerd behind them. What is not in doubt is that this is a very old lime standing where an older sacred tree stood before it.
Ages here come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so most figures on this page are bands. Two entries carry better reasoning than that and the pages say so. The register dates the black walnut in the Worpplantsoen to a specific replanting in 1820 to 1822, after the planting of 1816 was damaged by drifting ice on the IJssel. And for the poplar known as De Reus van De Worp it argues from a photograph: an image of the Lange Laan in the Ossenwaarde taken in 1917 shows the tree small and distant, clearly young, which supports a planting between 1900 and 1910 rather than anything earlier. That is a better piece of dating than most trees on this site have. The register is the 2024 edition and is the single source throughout, so everything here is flagged. Where a pin is marked approximate we know the park and not the trunk.
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