The Chestnuts of the Golden Lion

The protection here covers one horse chestnut and a torso. That is the register's own wording: entry number 53 on Regensburg's natural monument list, granted on 11 June 1997, protects a single standing chestnut plus what is left of a second, which is a good deal less than the plural in its name suggests. The name belongs to the building rather than the trees. Zum Goldenen Loewen, the Golden Lion, was an inn on this plot at Am Gries 30, and the chestnut kept the name after the inn stopped trading. It stands a few doors along from the Kastanien Am Gries, and the two are genuinely separate designations made a year apart under different numbers, not one group counted twice. On the ground the difference is easy: a cluster of trunks outside number 18, a single crown and the remains of its neighbour outside number 30. Nobody has dated either of them. One city ordinance from 1997 and a photograph from August 2022 are the entire documented record for this tree, and the photograph is also the last confirmation that it is standing. If you know the planting year, or you have five minutes and a tape measure, tell us.