The Cypresses of the Abbot's Palace at Santes Creus

Two cypresses in a courtyard at a Cistercian monastery, and the courtyard now belongs to the town hall. Santes Creus was founded in the twelfth century and is one of the three great Cistercian houses of Catalonia, with the kings of Aragon buried in its church; the abbot's palace beside it passed into secular hands after the monasteries were dissolved in 1835, and the local council occupies part of it. The two cypresses stand in its patio, 18 metres tall on trunks 3.37 metres round with crowns only 9.1 metres across, which is the shape of the species: Cupressus sempervirens grows as a dark green column and almost nothing else, which is why it has been planted at monasteries and cemeteries around the Mediterranean for two thousand years. Catalonia has them on its monumental tree register as a pair. The status listed is that the declaration is pending rather than complete, so they are on the list and protection is still working its way through. Nobody has published an age.