The Ginkgo of Terworm

This ginkgo grows along the drive to Kasteel Terworm, in good health as of a 2026 survey, standing where anyone walking up to the castle's front door can see it. The register bands its planting to 1910-1920, roughly a century, and offers two guesses rather than one: either it went in during an 1890s renovation under Baron de Loë, or during the few years around 1902 to 1907 when the estate was let to a mining baron named Wenckenbach, whose industry was reshaping the whole Heerlen region at the time. Terworm's own history runs back to around 1400 and a family named Van der Worm, through at least six rebuildings to the house that stands today, a period as an open-air swimming pool in its lower pond during the 1930s, and a near miss with becoming a theme park that Heerlen's own residents blocked. It is a hotel now, and the wooded estate around it belongs to Natuurmonumenten, a conservation organisation, which is why the grounds stay open to walkers rather than becoming private again. A ginkgo this size beside an old yew planting makes the drive up to the castle one of the more photogenic approaches in the register. If you know which decade it actually went in, tell us.