The Himalayan Cedar of the Paterstuin

When the Paterstuin was renovated in 2014 and 2015, a beech, a lime and a weeping ash from the national tree register came down. The Himalayan cedar stayed. It grows in the garden the Redemptorist fathers laid out behind the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk after 1868: an ornamental garden between two arms of the Watermolenbeek, with a pond, a bridge, a crucifix and a conservatory. Only on 16 July 2015 did it open to the public as a park. The Bomenstichting's Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which spells it 'Hymalaia ceder', bands the cedar's planting to the decade 1900 to 1910, so it is roughly 116 to 126 years old. That band is the only basis for its age, and nobody has recorded who planted it. It is 2.75 metres round at chest height and 18 metres tall, and the register last recorded it in March 2023. Two honest warnings. Several evergreens stand around the pond, and an aerial photograph cannot tell them apart, so our pin is the register's point rather than a fix at the trunk: look for the cedar, not the pin. And the garden still belongs to the parish. It opens in daylight and the gate closes at dusk, under a 2015 agreement that ran to 2025; we have not confirmed it was renewed. If you find the gate locked in daytime, or the cedar gone, tell us. A registered horse chestnut stands at the west end of the same garden.