The Oak of Nieuw Eyckholt

A second oak from the same wider stretch of woodland as its neighbour at Imstenrade, this one growing at the edge of the trees on the north side of Nieuw Eyckholt. The register bands its planting to 1850-1860, putting it at roughly 170 years, a generation or two younger than the Imstenrade oak and considerably more precisely dated. Eyckholt takes its name from the ruined medieval castle whose stronghold still stands nearby, first built around 1300 on the wooded slope above the Geleen valley. By the 1850s the ground around it had long since settled into ordinary estate woodland, and an oak planted at a forest edge in that decade would have grown up with room on one side and competition from other trees on the other, a lopsided crown often being the visible result. Nothing beyond the register describes this tree specifically: no plaque, no local story, just a species, a decade and a place. That is not unusual for a woodland-edge planting rather than one that stood beside a house or a road where people were more likely to notice it and remember why it went in. If you know more about this oak, tell us.