Wat is de oudste boom van Hilvarenbeek?

A gebodenlinde is a proclamation lime: the village aldermen announced Hilvarenbeek's decrees standing under this tree, which also sheltered the linen market and served as the courthouse tree. A record of 22 April 1676 notes a young lime recently planted on the Vrijthof, replacing one that died in 1675, but bomenbieb flags real uncertainty over whether today's tree is that planting or a 1704 replacement, hence the age band. Heavy limbs were given structural support in 1974, and the municipality is still studying how to improve its growing conditions. It stands in the open beside the church, the water pump and the bandstand, with a bench beneath it. A second, much younger tree stands about 16km away near Bladel: the Witch Tree of Black Kate, a beech of roughly 130 years whose local forester is on record saying the species is unremarkable and its legend invented. What made it Europe's fourth Tree of the Year in 2020 is its shape, a short twisted trunk with roots sitting above the ground, and the gothic 1852 tale that grew up around it. It is a separate car trip, not part of the same walk.