What is the oldest tree in Jægerspris Nordskov?
The oldest tree in Jægerspris Nordskov is Kongeegen, the King Oak, estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 years by a tree-ring investigation in 1965. That makes it, by most accounts, the oldest oak in northern Europe, and the estate foundation that owns the forest still writes about it in the present tense: the oldest tree, still alive. It is the survivor of three. The forest's famous group, De tusindårige ege, also held Storkeegen and Snoegen, and the foundation records both as dead, in 1980 and 1991. Kongeegen itself is a hollow shell standing on supports. At its largest the trunk was four metres across and fourteen metres round; the last main branch broke off in 1973, and half the shell and a side branch have gone since, so the Danish Dendrological Society's measurement of 12.55 metres describes a tree already past its own maximum. The crown, for something this age, is in surprisingly good order. The name comes from Frederik VII, who lived at Jægerspris Slot from 1854 and had the first supports put under it. The story locally is that the king and Countess Danner could sit side by side on horseback inside the trunk. A graft taken from the oak was planted in the castle park in 1986.
The forest is public, free and open, reached from Strandvejen north of Jægerspris town. There is no station in Jægerspris; the nearest is Frederikssund, a short drive away, and most people arrive by car or bicycle and walk in from there. Signs in the forest point to De tusindårige ege. The tree itself is fenced. The foundation that manages the forest does not allow anyone to walk or ride up to the trunk, so you look from outside the fence, which is close enough to see the props underneath it and the open side of the shell. That fence is the reason there is still something to look at: an oak in this condition does not survive people leaning on it. Give it an easy afternoon, and if you want the rest of the story, the castle and its park are a short distance away, with the 1986 graft of the oak growing there.
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