On the church square in Weywertz, the tree is older than the church by almost three centuries. The lime in front of St. Michael's has stood there since 1668, a date both the municipality and the village's own history give, while the neo-Romanesque church behind it went up in 1959 on the site of earlier ones. The lime is about twenty metres tall and has been a protected natural monument since 1984. A small stone-breaker sculpture joined it in 2020. Free, on the open square, in the German-speaking east of Belgium.
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The Old Lime of Weywertz
Lime (Tilia sp.) · over 350 years · Weywertz (Butgenbach), German-speaking Community of Belgium
The church behind this lime is the newcomer. St. Michael's was rebuilt in 1959, on the site of earlier churches, while the tree in front of it has stood on the square since 1668.
That date is unusually firm for a village tree. The municipality's own tourist page gives it, and so does the village's Wikipedia article, where the tree's picture is captioned simply "Linde von 1668". That makes it a little over 350 years old. It has grown to about twenty metres, and it has been a protected natural monument since 1984.
Put those two dates side by side. The neo-Romanesque church is not yet seventy years old; the tree was already close to three centuries old when it went up, and it was standing there when the church before it came down. On this square, the building is the thing that gets replaced and the lime is the thing that stays.
In 2020 the village added a small sculpture in its shade, the Steeklopper, a stone-breaker commemorating the local quarry trade. It is a good sign when a village keeps spending money on the ground around an old tree, and it gives the square a second reason to linger.
The sources say only "Linde", so we do not know whether this is a small-leaved, large-leaved or common lime. If you can tell from the leaves, let us know.
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