The Plane of Marienhage

This plane stands more than twenty-four metres tall and you cannot see it from the street. It grows behind Marienhage on the bank of the Dommel, screened by the buildings, and the national register says as much in its own fields: reachable, but not visible from the road. There has been a religious house on this ground since 1419, when Augustinian hermits founded a cloister on the river outside what was then a small town. The complex was rebuilt in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, ran as a monastery and a school for generations, and was sold in 2017. It is a hotel and a cultural venue now, which is a strange fate for a cloister and a fortunate one for the tree, since the garden came with it. How old the plane is depends on which register you ask. The national one bands the planting between 1880 and 1890, which would make it about 140. Eindhoven's own tree database says 1935, which makes it 91. Neither source explains the other and we have not picked a side. Getting to it asks a little faith in the map. Public footpaths run through the riverside grounds, the site's redevelopment plan undertook to open the garden, and Marienhage is a marked stop on the Dommelpad walking route. None of that proves the path takes you within sight of this particular tree, so go expecting a short hunt along the water.