Kasteel Amerongen was burned by Louis XIV's army in 1673 and rebuilt within a few years; not long after, somebody planted an oak in its new park that is still there, close to three and a half centuries later. The Dutch Tree Foundation formally adopted it in 1987, and a separate regional heritage record lists what is almost certainly the same tree under a second name, the lonely oak. It stands on a garden ticket bought apart from the castle museum, open Thursday to Sunday.
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The Adoption Oak of Amerongen
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · roughly 330 to 345 years · Amerongen
Louis XIV's army burned Kasteel Amerongen to the ground in 1673, and when the castle was rebuilt a few years later, somebody planted an oak in the new park. Three and a half centuries on it is a fixture of the grounds in a way the rebuilt castle, for all its history, cannot quite manage: buildings get restored, this tree just kept growing.
Bomenbieb dates the planting to around 1680, close enough behind the castle's reconstruction that the two are usually mentioned in the same breath, though no source claims the tree was planted to mark the rebuilding specifically. The girth is recorded at 5.9 metres. Height is where sources start to disagree: bomenbieb says 35 metres, other measurements found put it at 32, a small enough gap that it is recorded here rather than resolved.
In 1987 the Dutch Tree Foundation formally adopted it, one of the marks of official recognition this site treats as evidence a tree matters beyond its own park. A regional heritage map of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug separately lists a landmark oak at the same address under a different name, De eenzame eik, the lonely oak, almost certainly the same tree remembered under two names by two different record-keepers.
It stands in the castle's own park, on a ticket bought separately from the museum, open Thursday to Sunday.
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