The Zocher Plane of Zonnenburg

In 1835, the landscape architect Jan David Zocher jr began replacing the demolished defensive ring around old Utrecht with a chain of parks, the Singelplantsoen, that still follows the city's medieval bastions today. This plane, standing just west of the old Sterrenwacht observatory on the Zonnenburg bastion, carries that exact year in the municipality's own planting record, making it one of the oldest trees anywhere along Zocher's design and roughly as old as the park scheme itself. London plane, a hybrid of American sycamore and Oriental plane first bred in seventeenth century Europe, is the workhorse tree of the whole Singelplantsoen chain, planted for fast growth and tolerance of compacted city soil along a route that was walked and cycled hard from the day it opened. No girth is recorded for this specimen, but at close to two centuries old it should be among the largest planes on the route by now. The Sterrenwacht itself, Utrecht University's historic observatory, still stands beside it, giving the tree one of the more improbable neighbours on this list: nearly two hundred years of watching people look up at the stars from the building next door. Free, public parkland, a short walk from the old city centre.