What is the oldest tree in Leeuwarden?
The oldest tree in Leeuwarden is a copper beech standing by the Westerkerk on the Sint Anthonystraat, which the national register places in a planting band of 1750 to 1800, so between about 225 and 275 years old. It is also the one tree here with a warning attached. The register records that its rooting ground was compacted in the 1990s, that the tree took a blow from which it never recovered, and that although the ground has since been improved its condition has not come back, so it will in time have to be felled. It is standing now. If you want to see the oldest tree in Leeuwarden, this is an argument for going this year rather than in ten.
Ages here come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so every age on this page is a band and none is narrowed to look precise. The register is the 2024 edition and is the single source for these trees, which is why they are all flagged. It is a careful source: for several of these it records the tree's condition as well as its age, which is where the note about the Westerkerk beech comes from and why we have passed it on rather than quietly leaving it out. The Prinsentuin trees are dated indirectly, because the register reasons from the park's own history that the oldest trees in it must come from between 1830 and 1880 rather than from a record of any individual planting. Pins are as the register surveyed them; where one is marked approximate we know the park and not the trunk.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.