Gallery: France’s Oldest Tree Sp...

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The Oak chapels are not your average tree houses – it’s not known exactly when they were built, but they are estimated to be between 800 and 1200 years old! In the late 1600s the tree survived a lightning fire that hollowed out the center. Interpreting this occurrence as a holy event, the local priest at the time called for the tree to be turned into a church. The tree was still growing under the kingdom of Louis IX and it survived the Hundred Years War with the English, The Black Death, the Reformation and the Revolution.

A staircase spirals around the thousand-year-old trunk. The tree is starting to show its age and it now has internal and external poles supporting its tired life. A sacred place of worship, the Oak chapel is now a pilgrimage site that welcomes thousands of astonished visitors each year.

+ Oak Chapel

Via Kuriositas