Three sources describe these lindens and no two agree on how many there are. Hronsek's own village site counts four, of which two are as old as the church. Slovak Wikipedia counts three. The national register of protected trees lists six under a single designation, the lindens by the Hronsek church. What all three agree on is the year they went in: the trees were planted when the wooden articular church was consecrated in 1726, which puts the oldest of them at roughly three centuries. The church is what brings people to this village, and the lindens are the reason to stay another ten minutes. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 7 July 2008, one of the wooden churches of the Slovak part of the Carpathians, and these trees have stood over its shingled roof and its separate bell tower for the whole of that building's life. Every repair, every re-shingling, every winter the timber has had to survive has happened under their crowns. Nobody has published a girth or a height for any of them, so how thick the oldest one has grown is still an open question. If you go with a tape measure, tell us. The courtyard is a village church precinct and stands open. Getting inside the church outside the summer season needs a phone call first. The trees do not.
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Getting there
Churchyard of the Wooden Articular Church, Hronsek
You can recognise it by the ring of lindens around the churchyard, planted the year the wooden church was consecrated in 1726. It stands beside Hronsek's UNESCO-listed wooden articular church.
Free to view from the churchyard of the UNESCO-listed wooden articular church, a public village church precinct. Entering the church building itself outside the main season (Sept-Jun) needs a phone booking; the courtyard and trees are not gated behind that.
Hronsek village, roughly 18km / 20 minutes drive from Zvolen, no rail station in the village; regional bus from Zvolen or Banska Bystrica to Hronsek, short walk to the church.
In bloom
late June into July, when the limes flower and the churchyard fills with bees
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.