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Natural Monuments

Chapel of the Beech Tree

Natural Monuments

Chapel of the Beech Tree

Highlight • Religious Site

Chapel of the Beech Tree

Recommended by 18 hikers out of 19

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Location: Lummen, Hasselt, South Limburg, Flanders, Belgium

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Best Hikes to Chapel of the Beech Tree

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1. The Thousand-Year-Old Oak – The Thousand-Year-Old Oak loop from Lummen

11.1km

02:53

80m

Intermediate hike. Good fitness required. Easily-accessible paths. Suitable for all skill levels.

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Intermediate

4.6

(18)

106

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2. Hollow Passage – Schalbroek Ponds loop from Schulen

12.6km

03:16

80m

Intermediate hike. Good fitness required. Easily-accessible paths. Suitable for all skill levels.

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4.4

(17)

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3. The Thousand-Year-Old Oak – Hollow Passage loop from Lummen

7.66km

02:00

60m

Intermediate hike. Good fitness required. Easily-accessible paths. Suitable for all skill levels.

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Intermediate

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Targi

May 31, 2024

The Chapel of the Beukenboom is a chapel with a hermitage, located in Lummen, in the Belgian province of Limburg.

There used to be a wooden statue of Mary in the hollow of a beech on the site of the chapel. One day an old crippled sheepherder discovered that the statue had disappeared. On the feast day of Our Lady's Visitation in 1640, an alabaster statue of Our Lady, which had been venerated in the church since time immemorial, was transferred, processionally, to the enlarged cavity in the tree. Pilgrims from far and wide flocked there and miraculous healings took place.

Pastor Neven decided to spend the much money sacrificed for the shrine and a generous gift from Count Ernest van der Marck on building a chapel. On the feast day of Our Lady's Visitation (visit of Our Lady to Elisabeth) in the year 1641, the Venerable Lord Landdeken celebrated the first mass in the chapel with great solemnity.

Pious tradition still tells that the beech, which had sheltered the statue for a while, began to wither after the statue was removed. People took pieces of wood from the tree home as relics and Pastor Neven even had statues of Mary cut from the wood of the miraculous tree.

After new donations, a hermitage was added in 1650 as a home for a hermit who guarded the chapel and kept it in order. The portal was added in 1742. A second room followed in 1778. The chapel and its wooded surroundings have been protected as a monument and landscape since July 12, 1951. The chapel's greatest treasure is undoubtedly the alabaster statue of Our Lady with Child (circa 1425).

The safe is one of the four remaining Limburg safes. After a general restoration in 1998, the hermitage is currently being inhabited again.

nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapel_van_de_Beukeboom

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An 🇧🇪

October 19, 2025

The chapel is surrounded by a historic forest park with, among other things, large beech trees, lime trees, and sweet chestnuts. There is also a large Robinia with a trunk circumference of 398 cm (measured in 2018).
A brown beech tree stands centrally in this park, planted on a mound. As early as the early 17th century, an old beech tree is said to have stood here, with a venerated statue of the Virgin Mary in a hollow. When the statue disappeared in 1641, the chapel was built and the tree felled. Statues of the Virgin Mary were carved from the tree, and believers took pieces of wood as relics. The current beech tree is approximately 150 years old and had a trunk circumference of 340 cm in 2018. That year, it was voted Belgian Tree of the Year.

inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/erfgoedobjecten/22550

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Elevation 60 m

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Tuesday 4 November

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Location: Lummen, Hasselt, South Limburg, Flanders, Belgium

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Chapel of the Beech Tree

1. The Thousand-Year-Old Oak – The Thousand-Year-Old Oak loop from Lummen

2. Hollow Passage – Schalbroek Ponds loop from Schulen

3. The Thousand-Year-Old Oak – Hollow Passage loop from Lummen

Other Popular Places to Check Out

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