The White Horse Chestnut of Poptaslot

Left to itself, this horse chestnut would surround itself with children. Its lowest branches sweep down to the grass and will root wherever they rest, throwing up a ring of new stems around the parent trunk. The gardener at Poptaslot cuts them back so the tree stays one tree. It was planted in 1840 by L.P. Roodbaard, the landscape architect who redrew country estate after country estate across Friesland in the loose English style, as part of his design for the grounds here. Three maples nearby are his too, the same year, the same job. Poptaslot, also called Heringastate, was already a seventeenth century almshouse estate when he arrived, so the chestnut has spent its whole life as the newest thing on old ground. The trunk is 4.75 metres round and the tree is 19 metres tall. In June 2017 the national tree foundation put it first on its list of the ten most beautiful trees in Friesland, ahead of older and larger trees. Not the oldest, not the biggest, just the one people wanted to stand under. The garden is free, on weekdays from April to September, roughly nine to four and later in high summer, closed on Sundays. Going inside the house is a guided tour and a separate arrangement, but the tree is in the garden and the garden is the free part.