Ancient Trees in Leijpark

Leonard Springer, the most sought-after garden architect in the Netherlands, drew the 30-hectare park in 1919, his last large design, and then nothing happened for fifteen years while the land was assembled. It was finally built between 1934 and 1939 as a work relief project in the depths of the Depression, in the English landscape manner along the little river Leij that gives it its name. A silver maple, the first tree in the park to do anything after winter, and a young pedunculate oak that will outlast every other tree here by centuries both went in with that original planting. Tucked in the park's far northeast corner, in ground still locally called the Kloosterparkbos, stand three older trees the wider design absorbed rather than planted: an oak, a lime and a large-leaved holly, all named for a convent, home to the Congregatie van Onze Lieve Vrouw der Afzondering in het Cenakel from 1908, whose garden this land used to be before it was redeveloped and folded into Springer's park. The convent is gone; the trio it left behind, roughly 120 years old, makes an easy five-minute extension to the walk. All of it is free, open daily, no ticket.