Seasons1 of 4
The building beside this lime is the real headline. The Church of St Margaret of Antioch has been dated by both dendrochronology and radiocarbon analysis to the second half of the 10th century, roughly 925 CE, which makes it one of the oldest standing structures in Slovakia, a Great Moravian-era survivor now protected as a National Cultural Monument. The tree is younger by about seven centuries and has still been standing beside it for close to a tenth of the building's own life. Slovakia's arborist society measured the lime at 210 centimetres round and 20 metres tall when it won the national Tree of the Year vote in 2018, taking 9,526 votes, and the country put it forward for the European Tree of the Year the following year. It stands on a quiet meadow at the edge of Kopcany's territory near Skalica, the church and the tree together on open ground rather than fenced off from each other. Local sources like to say the two have protected each other and weathered more than two centuries side by side, a line that captures the pairing rather than a claim either has literally shielded the other. Nothing found says the lime has died or been felled since its award, and an arborist's own assessment is the evidence it was thriving as recently as 2018. Free to see, on foot from the village, no restriction.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Beside the Church of St Margaret of Antioch (Kostol svatej Margity Antiochijskej), Kopcany, Skalica district
You can recognise it as the lime standing on open ground directly beside the ancient Church of St Margaret of Antioch. It stands on a quiet meadow at the edge of Kopcany's territory.
Free. Stands in the open on a quiet meadow beside the Church of St Margaret of Antioch, a National Cultural Monument (registered 1995) and an actively visited pilgrimage/heritage site; the tree and churchyard are outdoors and reachable on foot, though the church building itself may keep limited opening hours.
Roughly 800m northwest of Kopcany village, near Skalica; no public transport reaches the meadow directly, it is a short walk or drive from the village.
In bloom
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.