The Wilhelminaboom of Hertogplein

Nijmegen crowned a queen with a tree. On 1 September 1898, five days before Wilhelmina's coronation, the city planted a lime on Hertogplein and ringed it with a wrought iron fence topped with small crowns, designed by the architect Derk Semmelink. The fence survived the German occupation. Its crowns did not: soldiers stripped them during the war, and the fence stood bare until 24 July 1948, when students at Nijmegen's trade school forged replacements and the city held a public ceremony to fit them back on. Whether the tree itself survived that long is less certain. Dutch Wikipedia's own account of the square says the original lime has since made way for another, without saying when. A 2025 local history piece describes the tree standing today and does not mention any replacement at all. The national tree register dates this spot to the 1880s, a decade before the coronation planting both other sources describe. Nobody has reconciled the three, so this page will not pretend to: what stands on Hertogplein now is a lime, ringed by a fence built for a different one, and its true age is unknown. The fence, at least, is certain. It has outlived at least one tree already.