The Horse Chestnut of Spanjaardslaan

In April 2025 the chestnut outside Spanjaardslaan 134 was taken down as a precaution, and several more along the street were listed for heavy pruning the month after. Bleeding canker has got into this avenue. A good share of its white and red horse chestnuts are in poor condition, and the council is putting back one healthy tree for every one it loses. So this entry comes with a warning rather than a promise. The news report names the street, not the tree, and the national register records this one condition as unknown. It dates the planting to between 1900 and 1910, which makes the tree something like 120 years old and puts it on this street since before the cars were. Whether it is still standing is a question for whoever gets there next, and we would like to hear the answer. Go in May and the point of the whole street is obvious anyway. Horse chestnuts flower in upright candles, white on the common kind and pink-red on the hybrids, and an avenue of them in flower is a better argument for street trees than any council report. This one is a white. For two weeks it is the reason anybody planted chestnuts along a road in the first place. The rest of the year it is a tree the neighbourhood is trying to keep.