The Linden of Daukša Courtyard

Somebody has carved a chapel into this tree. It is a small niche cut into the trunk with a two-pitched roof above it, and inside stands a wooden figure of an old warrior holding a sword. No source names the carver. Lithuania has a long tradition of little roofed wooden shrines by roads and in yards, but putting one inside a living lime in a university courtyard is not the usual practice. The tree holds the M. Daukša Courtyard of Vilnius University's central buildings together. History Faculty students meet under it, alumni come back to it at reunions, and the student corporation Korp! Tilia is said to have taken its name from it. Tilia is the linden's own genus, which makes the name either a good joke or a flat description. Vilnius has protected it as a municipal heritage object since 29 May 1996. What nobody has written down is how old it is. There is no year in the register, none in the literature, and no published girth to reason back from. If you have measured it, or know when it went in, tell us and it goes on the page.