The Cedar of Lebanon at the Gabbema Gasthuis
Oud Oost
Approximate location.
A cedar from the mountains of Lebanon has stood in front of a Frisian almshouse since the year the almshouse was finished. The Gabbema Gasthuis on the Wijbrand de Geeststraat was completed in 1906 to a design by Willem Cornelis de Groot, in the mixed Art Nouveau and neo-Renaissance manner of that moment, and the city's monumental-green walking route dates the cedar to the same year. It counts the tree among the ten it considers Leeuwarden's most remarkable. Two honest notes before you go. Our coordinate is a geocode of the almshouse building rather than of the trunk, so it is good to about forty metres. And the tree stands in front of the gasthuis rather than inside it. The gate at that point is marked as one pedestrians may use, but nobody has stated in so many words that the grounds are open, so plan on seeing it from the street and treat anything more as a bonus. From the pavement it is unmistakable anyway. Cedrus libani holds its branches out in flat, layered tiers, a shape no Dutch street tree has, and it keeps its dark needles through the winter when everything around it is bare. At about 120 years it is barely started. The trees this species is famous for, on the Lebanese mountainsides, are counted in centuries rather than decades.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
In front of the Gabbema Gasthuis, Wijbrand de Geeststraat 42
You can recognise it by the flat, tiered branches and the dark evergreen needles, unlike anything else on the street. It stands in front of the Gabbema Gasthuis at Wijbrand de Geeststraat 42, visible from the pavement.
Free to view; likely on the public street frontage rather than inside the almshouse's own grounds. The brochure says the tree stands 'voor het Gabbema Gasthuis' (in front of the almshouse), which reads as street-facing rather than an interior courtyard, and OSM tags a gate right at this spot as access=permissive, foot=yes, i.e. pedestrians are allowed through it. Flagged rather than fully confirmed as open, because the Gabbema Gasthuis is a historic almshouse (like Leeuwarden's Sint Anthony Gasthuis, whose own trees are blocked on this site as explicitly private) and no source states in so many words that the grounds are public; treat the access note on the page as 'visible from the street, exact access unconfirmed.'
About 1.2 km east of Leeuwarden station, on foot.
In fruit
September to November: upright barrel cones that sit on the branches like eggs
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.