What is the oldest tree in Rouen?
The oldest tree we have mapped around Rouen is the Oak of Madame, a pedunculate oak of more than 150 years standing on the waymarked Petit-Essart circuit in the Foret de La Londe-Rouvray, about 11 kilometres south of the city near Les Essarts. It is free to reach, on a signed walking loop from the Jean Coiffier centre, and the forest register says a local history goes with it, told on a panel beside the trunk.
Rouen is not a city of thousand-year veterans, or at least we have not found one. The trees on the metropole's remarkable-trees trail are mostly between 75 and 150 years old, and the register publishes those ages as bands rather than dates, so several of them overlap and the ranking at the top is closer than it looks. The Oak of Madame carries the highest figure, more than 150 years. Behind it sit a group of beeches at 120 to 150: the Majestic Beech beside the D351 in Roumare, the Beech of the Cotrets in the Foret Verte, the Beeches of the Breteque, and the sessile oak that now carries the name Gadeau de Kerville. That last name is a reminder of what the city lost. The oak that originally held it was several centuries old and was uprooted in the storm that went through Normandy in December 1999, and the tree standing at the crossroads today is a younger successor. If you know an older tree in or around Rouen, tell us and it goes on the list.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.