Kroezeboom Fleringen by Gé Klein Wolterink

A kroezeboom (sometimes also kroeseboom) is a tree, usually an oak, that marks a boundary or crossroads. In the eastern Netherlands, stones or trees were often used as boundary markers on the ash from which the fields were divided. In addition, the place was also used as a sacred place or place of justice.

One of the most famous and oldest trees is the kroezeboom on the Fleringer Es, south of Tubbergen and north of Fleringen in the province of Overijssel (52° 23′ 16″ N, 6° 47′ 49″ E). It is estimated that the tree was planted between 1500 and 1600 as a 'loak tree' or marke tree. The pedunculate oak is sometimes estimated to be older but is in all probability between 400 and 500 years old. This makes it one of the oldest oak trees in the Netherlands.

In the period of the Reformation there were secret meetings of the Catholic population at the kroezeboom where they attended mass until about 1730. The wagon on which the altar and priest were transported served as the pulpit. These masses were celebrated by the itinerant archpriest Henricus Smithuis. According to information, a field chapel, the hilligen huesken, stood near this kroezeboom in the 16th and 17th centuries. Even after the demolition of the chapel it remained a sacred place for the Catholics of the area.

In 1909, on the centenary of the return of St. Pancratius Church, a procession was held to the kroezeboom where a new chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Christ had been built. In 1916, the land on which the kroezeboom stands within a radius of 20 meters measured from the center of the tree was donated to the St. Pancratius Parish of Tubbergen. Until World War II, a mass was celebrated every year in the summer at the kroezeboom.