The London Plane of the Diakonessenhuis Garden

London planes were the tree Victorian cities planted when they wanted something that could stand the air, and they manage it by shedding their bark in plates, taking the grime off with it. This one is the northernmost of the three registered trees in the old Diakonessenhuis garden and the closest to the hospital building itself, which means it has had the best view of everything that happened here. The hospital opened in 1879. The plane went into the ground between 1880 and 1890, so it is roughly 135 to 145 years old. The hospital closed in 1987, the building came through the years as a national monument and now holds flats, and the plane was entered in the monumental-trees register in 1989, in the middle of the conversion. Like the chestnuts beside it, it took damage from the building work of the 1990s, when a garage entrance went in next to the neighbouring block. Inspectors rated its condition reasonable in 2017. The register is divided about this courtyard in an odd way. The two chestnuts are listed as privately owned and openly visitable, while the plane is down to a public body with its visitability marked unknown. On the ground it is one landscaped garden with paved paths running through it and a bench beside the trees, laid out in 1895 to a Vlaskamp design and half surviving.