The Chestnut of Akerkhof

When Groningen redeveloped the Akerkhof a few years ago to fix a square that had gone dark, dry and unloved, the plan called for cutting three trees and clearing scrub around the church to let light back in. This horse chestnut was not one of them. The municipality's own account of the project says its monumental chestnut and linden trees deliberately kept their place and gained more room as the work went on, while three new trees were planted along the redesigned Brugstraat to make up for what came down. Akerkhof was a real cemetery from the twelfth century until burials inside the city walls were banned on hygiene grounds and the ground was cleared in 1828, which is most of why an open square with old trees exists here at all. This chestnut, dated by the register to around 1880 to 1890, is younger than that clearance but has still stood through the square's dark spell and its recent recovery. It grows in the open around the Akerk church, free to walk past any time, on a square the city now treats as worth protecting rather than merely tolerating.