The Baumann's Horse Chestnut of the Algemene Begraafplaats

Every May this horse chestnut covers itself in white flowers, and every autumn it drops not a single conker. It is 'Baumannii', the double-flowered clone of the ordinary horse chestnut, and its flowers set no fruit. The national tree register bands its planting to the 1870s, roughly 146 to 156 years ago. Sources disagree on when the Algemene Begraafplaats itself opened, somewhere between about 1880 and 1894, so the tree may be as old as the cemetery or older. Nobody has recorded how it came to stand here. It has seen the cemetery's whole working life. Roosendaal buried its dead here until 1978, when the ground closed to new burials, and the chestnut stayed on among the grave rows, alone, 18 metres tall and 3.64 metres round at chest height. Age has left its mark. The register notes a split in the main fork with small cracks beneath it, and in December 1999 the crown was thinned and anchored. It was inspected again in May 2025 and is still listed as monumental. That register is the only record of this tree we have found; if you know its history, tell us. The cemetery is open daily from 8.00 to 16.30, and dogs are not allowed.