What is the oldest tree in Helmond?
The oldest tree in Helmond is the one known as de oude eik van boer Peeters, the old oak of farmer Peeters, on the Rijnlaan at Brouwhuis, which the national register places in a planting band of 1820 to 1830, so around two centuries old. Its name is not folklore we have collected: the register itself says the name comes from the book 'Grote en kleine geschiedenissen rond bomen in Helmond en omgeving' by Maria van de Looverbosch, which is a local history of the trees of Helmond and its surroundings. That is worth knowing because it means somebody in this town went to the trouble of writing down what its trees are called, and the national register then read it.
Ages here come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so every figure on this page is a band. The register is the 2024 edition and is the single source throughout, so everything is flagged. Four of the seven stand in the grounds of Kasteel Helmond and share one piece of history: the castle has been here nearly seven hundred years, was surrounded by a large landscape park until the middle of the twentieth century, and lost most of that park after the last private owner sold it in 1921. The trees are what is left, and the three planted between 1880 and 1930 straddle that sale, so the oak belongs to the private park and the lime and the chestnut to the years just after it ended. Where a pin is marked approximate we know the grounds and not the trunk, which in a castle park is a real difference, and if you find one of these gone, tell us and it comes off the same day.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.