The Horse Chestnut of the Willem Kes Plantsoen

In May this tree puts up its white flower candles directly in front of a theatre entrance, which is about as well staged as a chestnut gets. The national register lists it as a witte paardenkastanje, a white horse chestnut, planted somewhere between 1880 and 1890 and so roughly 136 to 146 years old. The city owns it, the file marks it as visitable, and the reason recorded for its protected status is simply that it is monumental. Under history the entry is blank, and so is the line where a girth would go. For a tree of this size on public ground in the old centre, that is a gap somebody with a tape measure could close in a minute. It shares the Willem Kes Plantsoen with a plane of the same planting band, standing about 25 metres away, which makes the two of them a single short errand off the theatre forecourt. Both have been in front of the Kunstmin theatre since the 1880s, through two world wars and every audience that has come and gone in between. Dordrecht points visitors at it itself. The Bomenridders route, the city's own tree walk, lists the stop in plain words: white horse chestnut, Kunstmin Theatre, Sint Jorisweg 76. Come in May for the flowers, or in October when the conkers come down.