Tilleul de la Liberté de Pérouges

Pérouges

In the middle of the cobbled square, between the inn, the fortress-church and the half-timbered houses, an old lime with a hollow trunk, held up by seven wooden props, opens every spring good green leaves on branches too heavy for it. It was planted on 21 April 1792, in the first years of the Revolution, as a tree of Liberty, and it is one of the very rare trees of that generation to have escaped the fellings of the Restoration: most of the trees of 1792 have disappeared, cut down or dead. The diameter of its trunk, of the order of a metre, is modest for its age; this is explained by the rocky hillside on which the town is perched. The law of 1930 on sites made it possible to protect the tree, which had become remarkable: it is a listed site by order of 29 June 1948, for its picturesque interest according to the DREAL record. It was then twenty metres tall; it is now only eight. In 1992, at two hundred years old, it lost several branches, and severe pruning together with imposing propping saved it; since then the commune has forbidden de-icing salt at its foot and, since 2010, parking around it. The regional environment directorate describes it as having reached the stage of senescence but stabilised, and Wikipedia says it is dying little by little; but it is alive, and the Office national des forêts sees to its pruning.

Wikipédia — Tilleul de Pérouges ↗

Getting there : Pérouges is some thirty kilometres north-east of Lyon by the A 42 (exit 7, Pérouges); one leaves the car at the outer car parks and walks up into the town, open at all times. The lime is on the central square, in front of the inn and the museum. The town is very busy in summer and at weekends; come early.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound