The Castle Square Oak of Hoechst

Frankfurt's register entry for this oak says it is still fairly young and has not reached its full size, which is a candid thing to write into the document that protects it. It is over 150 years old, about 13 metres tall and 2.6 metres round. None of that is a record. What it has is the square. The Höchster Schlossplatz sits in the tight old town of Höchst, beside the castle on the Main, and the city's own text calls the oak the formative centre of the place. Its crown spreads about 21 metres, wider than the tree is tall, over a square closed in by old buildings. A wooden bench runs in a ring around the trunk, which tells you what the square thinks the tree is for. It stands in front of the entrance to the Zollhaus, and it was already here when Höchst was still a town of its own. Frankfurt only absorbed it in 1928, so this oak has been the middle of the square under two different town halls. Today the city protects it as natural monument 024, with a zone of ten metres around the trunk. So come for the place rather than the measurements. There is nothing to pay and nothing to find: walk into the square, look for the bench, and sit on it.