The Green Beeches of the Nieuwe Kerkhof

A parked lawn beside a seventeenth century church holds one of Groningen's largest stands of old beeches, roughly thirty of them by some counts, and the Dutch national monumental tree register singles out two as genuinely exceptional: one standing in front of the Nieuwe Kerk with a long-healed wound in its trunk, the other beside the church carrying an old broken-limb scar that woodpeckers have since hollowed out and that a self-seeded oak has taken root beside. The Nieuwe Kerk itself, a protected national monument, was completed in 1660, and the register dates these beeches to the 1860s, roughly two centuries younger than the building they stand beside but old enough to have shaded the square through most of its life as a public space. European beech left unclipped and given room, as these two were, grows a dense, smooth-barked canopy that can live for centuries longer still. Because the register records this pair as one entry rather than two separately pinned trunks, the coordinates here mark the general spot on the church lawn rather than one exact tree; both stand within easy sight of each other. Free, open square, a short walk from the city centre.