The Bezuidenhoutseweg Oak

Four minutes north of the platforms at Den Haag Centraal, on the old deer meadow called the Koekamp, stands an oak the national register dates to somewhere between 1750 and 1800. That is a fifty year shrug rather than a date, and it still makes the tree at least 225 years old, possibly closer to 275. The Koekamp is why it is here. This strip beside the Haagse Bos has been grazing meadow for centuries, cattle first and deer later, land that was never built on and never laid out as a garden, so the trees on it were left to get old rather than pruned into a design. Not all of them got the chance. During the German occupation a great many trees around the Koekamp went into stoves as firewood or were cut down to clear the line of a tank ditch dug across this side of the city. This oak stayed standing through both. It has no name, no plaque and no recorded history, it belongs to the state forestry service, and it is one of the easiest old trees in the Netherlands to reach: out of the station, over the road, and there it is. If you know who planted it, we would like to hear.