Today I popped into Parc Tenbosch, Ixelles. It was my first time. I don’t know why over the years I had not visited it before. Perhaps I didn’t feel it calling me.
But it called today.
If you want to know what the topography of the older parts of Brussels, especially in the suburbs, was once like, visit the parks.
Here the contours of the 19th century remain, used to accentuate planting. Small paths meander up and down. The ground was not levelled for ease of road and house building.
There are some fine specimens there. Here is a Black Locust, 𝑅𝑜𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑎 𝑝𝑠𝑒𝑢𝑑𝑜𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑎. I couldn’t do it justice for the simple reason that it was massive. The leaves and flowers were far off the ground. Look at that rope-cabling in the trunk, deep ravines running through ancient bark.
It rises up through the lower canopies of spotted laurel and hazel, towering above.
Unlike the escapees encountered on the margins of the Forest, this is a veteran, very easily over 100 years old and probably dating from the original planting. The Semet-Solvay family bought the estate in 1885 and established a château with gardens, orchard and vegetable plots here, the Forest not so distant.