Bulat-Pestivien is a small commune in the Côtes-d'Armor countryside, and the tree that brings anyone here stands alone on a working farm at the hamlet of Tronjoly. Locals call it Ar Ven Der, simply 'the oak tree', and it may hold the thickest trunk of any oak in continental Europe: measurements taken since 2008 put it at 12 to 13 metres round. A hermit reportedly lived inside its hollow trunk in the 1750s. The owner has kept it open to respectful visitors for over a decade, wooden barriers marking how close you may come.
0 / 1 bezocht in Bulat-Pestivien
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Le Chêne de Tronjoly (Ar Ven Der)
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · many centuries old, sources disagree sharply (roughly 900 to 1600 years) · Tronjoly, Bulat-Pestivien (near Callac)
Around 1750 a hermit named Le Graet is said to have moved into this tree, keeping a bed, a table and a library inside the hollow trunk. That gives some idea of the space. The measurements agree on the scale and not much else: 12 metres round in 2008, 12.5 in 2015, and a reported 13 before the trunk split into a living half and a standing dead stub. Ted Green of the Ancient Tree Forum, quoted by the commune and by French dendrologists, reckons it may be the largest oak trunk in continental Europe.
Its age depends on who you ask, and the gap is not a detail. That same reading puts it at 1300 to 1600 years. A 2015 account of the tree settles nearer 900 to 1200. Neither can be checked against the rings, because there is no longer enough trunk left to count.
Bretons call it Ar Ven Der, the oak tree, as though there were no others. It stands by itself where three slopes meet above a stream running down to the Leguer, classified an arbre remarquable since April 2004. In February 2015 oak beams, jointed by mortise and tenon, were set under the heaviest lower limbs to stop them tearing away. The land around it is a working farm rather than a park, and wooden barriers mark how close a visitor may go.
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