Storm fells 150-year-old horse chestnut
26 August 2010
A storm has brought down the 150-year-old horse chestnut tree in Amsterdam made famous in the diary of Anne Frank as her only glimpse of the outside world from the attic where she hid in the Second World War.
The tree, already weakened by disease and propped up on a steel frame, snapped off about a metre above the ground and crashed into neighbouring gardens, narrowly missing the Anne Frank House museum. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
The tree was diagnosed with bleeding canker about 10 years ago and was also suffering from an infestation of horse chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella). Local people raised the money to build a support structure around the trunk and anchor the crown in 2008 after winning a court injunction to prevent the authorities from felling the tree as unsafe – a move which, it was hoped, would extend the tree's life by decades.
Anne Frank died aged 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany. She wrote about the tree three times in her diary, describing its changes from season to season. 'Our chestnut tree is in full blossom,' she wrote in May. 'It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.'
Saplings from the tree have been grown on and have been planted in schools, gardens and other institutions around the world, including the White House gardens. Nine are growing in the UK, planted by the Anne Frank Trust at locations throughout the country, including the National Arboretum in Staffordshire.