The Copper Beech of the Varkenmarkt

The name of the square says what happened here: a pig market, and a lively livestock trade for a long time. Near this tree there was also a synagogue, which was pulled down in 1965. So the beech is standing in a piece of Dordrecht that has been comprehensively emptied of its old uses. The animals went, the congregation's building went, and the courtyard by number 70 is now a quiet interior space with a very large purple tree in it. The register makes a point about this one that it rarely makes: it is growing in a natural rooting position, and its trunk base and the ground around it are unrestricted. That is close to unheard of for a mature beech in a city centre. Almost every urban beech is slowly strangled by paving over the root plate, so a big one with open soil around its flare is a tree that has had what it needed, and it shows in the size. Worth seeing in April as much as in October. Copper beech opens its leaves a translucent red that darkens to purple within a fortnight, and in an enclosed courtyard the light through them is extraordinary.