Seven metres round, and not yet 140 years old. White willows grow at a rate oaks would find vulgar. This one went in somewhere between 1890 and 1900 on the river ridge of the IJssel foreland at Wilp, and a regional river-heritage survey measures it at about seven metres of circumference, still adding roughly ten centimetres a year. The trunk is hollow and the tree is vital, which for an old willow is normal rather than a contradiction. Nobody pollarded it for decades, which is why it carries one enormous twisted stem instead of the neat cropped head of a working dike willow. A lightning strike in the 1990s took part of that stem and left it leaning, and the lean has stayed. Its neighbour, a three-stemmed willow of about the same age, was badly burned in the autumn of 2020 and is still standing as well. Most people meet this tree from the A1 bridge, at speed, on the way into Deventer. The better version is the Bolwerksweg on foot or by bike, roughly two kilometres along the same road from the Steenenkamer maple. Several old willows stand at this spot and we have not pinned the exact one to the metre, so look for the seven-metre waist and the lean. You will know it when you are in front of it.
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Getting there
Bolwerksweg, along the IJssel dike near Wilp
You can recognise it by the single enormous twisted stem, seven metres round and leaning since a lightning strike in the 1990s. The neighbouring willow of the same age has three stems and burn damage from 2020.
Free, standing beside the public Bolwerksweg dike road, part of the 'Langs Wilp en IJssel' walking route (dwarsdoorsalland.nl) and visible from the A1 motorway bridge toward Deventer. The floodplain path itself may be seasonally closed to protect nesting birds (15 March-15 July per the Deventer floodplain plan), but the tree stands by the road/dike rather than deep in the floodplain, so it is not affected.
No rail station nearby; reachable by bike or car along the Bolwerksweg from Deventer (roughly 2km/10-15 min cycle from dev_008 The Steenenkamer Maple on the same road), or bus toward Wilp village.
Winter shape
January, when the leaves are off and the hollow leaning trunk shows in full
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.