The Gnarled Plane of the Tolsteegbrug

The city wrote down the year this plane went into the ground: 1835. That municipal planting record, quoted in the national monumental tree register for this specific tree, makes its age a date rather than an estimate, and puts it at around 190 years. It has spent them at the water's edge beside the Tolsteegbrug, in Manenburg, one of the small parks laid out on the bastions of the old city wall along the Stadsbuitengracht, the same ring of parks as the Zonnenburg. What sets it apart is the bottom of the trunk. Higher up it is an ordinary London plane, with peeling, mottled bark, big fresh-green leaves and a crown about 24 metres tall. Lower down the stem turns gnarled and irregular, and a local canoe map of the monumental trees you can see from Utrecht's canals singles out exactly that misshapen base. The same guide lists the tree as stop 5 on its route and photographed it as recently as January 2026, so it is alive and well. The trunk measures 550 centimetres round. It is one of two monumental trees flanking the same crossing. The other is a black walnut about 94 metres away, a different species entirely, so a walk over the bridge takes in both.