The Linde van Sambeek

There is a second trunk inside this hollow one, and it is the same tree. The Linde van Sambeek started out as a three-tiered ceremonial lime. A storm took the tiers in 1884 and a second storm in 1901 took nearly the whole crown, after which everybody expected it to die. Instead a new stem grew up out of the old root system, inside the shell of the hollow trunk. That stem is now about 2.5 metres round on its own and carries part of the crown standing today. The outer trunk measured 7.97 metres round in 2004, which makes it the thickest lime in the Netherlands, and locally it is called the oldest as well. Nobody can settle that. The trunk is hollow, so there are no rings to count, and 350 to 500 years is the honest range. It is listed in the national monumental tree register as number 1679463. The village has kept paying for it. A restoration in 1973 and 1974 came out of municipal funds and brought cable anchors, iron trunk supports and root-zone treatment. Stichting Wereldboom declared it a World Tree in 2015 and has guided its pruning since. In 2025 Land van Cuijk decided to realign and narrow the road running past it, to give the roots more room. That is a municipality moving a road for a tree.