The Beech of Willemskade

For most of its life this beech was half of something else. Two copper beeches went into the garden at Willemskade 27 around 1865, close enough together that over the decades they grew into and through one another. The IVN's walking guide to Leeuwarden's monumental trees calls them relatiebomen and still describes a pair. That guide has been overtaken. The national register's own history for the entry records that the southern tree was felled in 2026 after a fungus weakened its base, a problem first written up at an inspection in 2023. The northern beech is the one left standing, and it is the one on this page. It was in the ground before the house was. The villa behind it, now a listed building, went up in 1874; the register gives the trees a planting band of 1860 to 1870 and the IVN says circa 1865, which puts this one at roughly 160 years old. The municipality designated it and entered it in the national register in 1988. You look at it from the pavement. It stands along the garden boundary facing the Willemskade, on private ground with a public view, which is how the waterfront has seen it for a century and a half. In late April the new leaves open translucent red before they darken, and for a fortnight the whole crown holds the light.