Promenade de l'Arbre des 4 frères

This short itinerary takes you to the Arbre des quatre frères (four brothers’ tree), which takes its name from its silhouette. A stone tablet is erected at the entrance to the woods, in memory of the owner, Arthur Massart, who, upon his death, bequeathed the 200 hectares of woodland in his possession to the municipality. A little background: in around 1860, after the death of Marquis de Pange and his wife, his heirs sold La Fagne to ‘Société Lamarche’. This company aimed to nearly completely clear the woods, with the goal of establishing a centre for cereal crops. During the clearing process, the main forest ranger noticed a very beautiful oak tree, its main trunk split into four completely distinct and symmetrical trunks. In 1870, this oak tree stood alone among the vast cereal crops. A few years of growing cereals was enough to realise the project was a failure. Société Lamarche declared bankruptcy. La Fagne was divided up and sold. The least productive sections were replanted and the others were converted into pastures. As a result, the ‘Des quatre frères’ oak tree is the last testament to the original La Fagne.