Orme de Sully de Villesèquelande

Villesèquelande

On the village square, between the church and the town hall, a field elm of fourteen metres spreads a crown as wide as the square, borne on crutches, on a trunk of 5.43 m in girth at chest height and 6.70 m at the base. It is the effigy of the village: since the institution of civil registration in 1792, it has seen 987 births, 518 marriages and 1,055 deaths go by, counted by the inhabitants. It is called the Sully elm because tradition has it planted under Henri IV, when the minister is said to have recommended that parishes plant elms on their squares and in front of their churches; four hundred years is the age it is given, without a record of planting. Its singularity is to be alive: Dutch elm disease, an illness caused by a fungus, has killed almost all the elms of France, and this one is among the last great survivors. It owes this to a continuous treatment, insecticide in the early 1980s, then, since the 1990s, infusions of fungicide and insecticide from spring to autumn, whose reservoir can be seen hung on the trunk, 'as in human medicine', says Wikipedia. Protected as a registered site (status to be checked) by order of 6 August 1945, under the name Ormeau de la promenade, it received the Arbre remarquable de France label in 2013 and was nominated for the Tree of the Year competition in 2022; the commune itself was awarded the Village de l'arbre label in 2021.

Wikipédia — Villesèquelande ↗

Getting there : From Carcassonne, by the D 6113 towards Castelnaudary then the D 33 (to be checked); the elm is in the middle of the village, Place de la Résistance, in front of the church and the town hall, freely accessible. Its low branches are propped; one can sit beneath it. The Canal du Midi and its towpath pass a few hundred metres to the north.

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

Ambient sound