The Stone Bench Beech of Juliana en Bernardpark

A beech that grows alone is a different shape of tree from a beech that grows in a wood. In a forest it races its neighbours upward and ends as a long clean column with the crown somewhere overhead. Given open ground it keeps its low limbs, spreads sideways and often finishes wider than it is tall. This one has had open ground in the Juliana en Bernardpark for about 160 years, and the outline shows which life it got. The national register puts the planting between 1860 and 1870 and locates the tree by the stone bench rather than by any house number, which is still the best direction anyone can give. So: roughly 160 years, from an estimate of the planting rather than a count of rings. Nobody has cored it, and the register is the only source that dates it at all. That span covers the turning of Voorburg from a village of country estates into a suburb of The Hague, and the occupation, and every winter storm in between. None of it shows on the tree. Beech holds smooth grey bark to the end, which is why the only honest measure of one is its girth. Voorburg belongs to the municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg, east of The Hague and outside the city, so this is a ride out rather than a stroll.