The storm of October 1987 tore the crown clean off this lime, and it has spent nearly forty years rebuilding one under protective care. Sources reach for 400 years as its age, on the belief it dates from the early 1600s, though a rival local account makes it a liberty tree planted during the Revolution instead, which would roughly halve that. The village inn, the Auberge du Gros Tilleul, is named after it, and it stands unfenced on the open square in the Baie de Somme country.
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Photo : APictche (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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The Great Linden of Argoules
Small-leaved Lime (Tilia cordata) · roughly 400 years · Argoules village square
The storm of 15 and 16 October 1987 tore the crown clean off this lime. It has been rebuilding one ever since, slowly and under protective care, which is the plainest evidence anyone could ask for that the tree is still working.
Four hundred years is the figure the sources reach for, on the belief that it dates from the start of the seventeenth century. A competing local account makes it a liberty tree planted in 1792 or 1793, when villages across France were putting them in, which would roughly halve its age. Both sources flag these as rival stories rather than one settled date, so the honest answer is that Argoules does not know how old its lime is.
What the state decided is easier to pin down. The tree was classified as a botanical natural monument in 1934, and in 2016 it was labelled Arbre remarquable de France.
It stands on the open square between the Saint-Germain church and the chateau, in the Baie de Somme country, free and unfenced. The village inn is named after it, the Auberge du Gros Tilleul, which tells you how long it has been the thing people navigate by here. No girth figure has ever been published. If you bring a tape, we would like the number.
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