A limestone quarry above the hamlet of Padouchov stopped working long ago and filled back in with forest; water still drops eight metres over its cut wall as the Ještěd waterfall. Beside it grows a beech five metres round with heavy buttress roots flaring from the base, protected as a memorial tree and reached on foot from Proseč pod Ještědem. Nobody has recorded its age, and the quarry beneath it is now a protected bat roost.
0 of 1 visited in Prosec pod Jestedem
Photo: MartinVeselka (CC BY-SA 4.0)
1
Buk lesní v Proseči pod Ještědem
European Beech (Fagus sylvatica) · roughly 200 to 350 years, judged from a trunk 5 m round · Padouchov, Proseč pod Ještědem, Liberec Region
There is a waterfall here that nobody designed. Eight metres of water drops over the cut wall of a limestone quarry that stopped working and filled back in with forest, and the beech stands right beside it, five metres round at the trunk, with heavy root buttresses flaring out of the ground all round the base.
It is a protected memorial tree on the Hlubocký ridge above the hamlet of Padouchov, reached on foot on the trail up to the Ještěd waterfall from Proseč pod Ještědem. The quarry underneath is now a protected bat roost, so this small piece of ground has been left alone twice over: once by the quarrymen who walked away from it, and once by law.
Nobody has recorded an age or a height. The municipality publishes the girth, five metres, and nothing else. For a beech that is well into old age without saying how far into it, and there is no plaque or local account to settle the question. If you know more, tell us.
One thing to know before you go. Our pin marks the waterfall and quarry area rather than a coordinate anybody has stood on and checked, so it is close rather than exact, and you will have to look around a little once you are up there.
Read more and get directions →