The shape of the green
De Lind is not a square. It is a long, elongated common — almost a kilometre of grass and trees running through the centre of Oisterwijk, lined on both sides by buildings whose plots were laid out in the Middle Ages. That shape is the giveaway: it began as a market street and grazing strip, with the church at one end and the houses pressing in on either side. The lime trees that march down its length give it the soft, dappled atmosphere that is the village's signature.
Walk it from the church end towards the old town hall and you cross most of Oisterwijk's history in five minutes: medieval house plots, Catholic parish life, eighteenth-century farmsteads converted into shops, twentieth-century cafés, and now the wine bars and boutiques of a confident small market town.
The lime tree itself
Behind the formal rows of newer lindens stands an old, gnarled tree that is older than the village's records. Dendrology puts it at roughly a thousand years, which would make it older than the parish church, older than the town rights, possibly older than the village in its current shape. It is the tree the green is named for — linde in Dutch — and it functioned for centuries as a meeting and judgement tree, a focus for the open-air administration of the medieval town. Local lore claims it is the oldest tree in the Netherlands; other contenders exist, but few are documented as continuously as this one.
"Older than the church. Older than the records. Possibly older than the town itself."
The Oude Raadhuis
The old town hall — Oude Raadhuis — sits near the eastern end of De Lind. A processional path of old lindens, two rows deep, runs up to it; in any season it is one of the most photographed views in the village. The building is itself a national monument. It is no longer in administrative use but hosts exhibitions, ceremonies and the occasional wedding.
The terraces and the green economy
The reason De Lind is so consistently lively is the unusual number of cafés and restaurants that line it. The municipality counts more than six thousand outdoor terrace seats across Oisterwijk, and a striking proportion of them sit along this single stretch. On a sunny weekend afternoon — and especially on the open-air market days — the green becomes the social engine of the whole village. The mix of cafés is wide enough that you can find a sober coffee at 09:00 and a noisy gin at 23:00 within a hundred metres.
This is the Burgundian Brabant the village is known for: long lunches, easy company, the kind of place where two pints of bier become an afternoon. The ANWB cited this atmosphere directly when it named Oisterwijk one of the most beautiful villages in the Netherlands in August 2020.
The buildings worth looking up at
Several of Oisterwijk's national monuments sit on or just off De Lind:
- Het Oude Raadhuis — the old town hall, eighteenth-century façade.
- De Lind 1–7 — a stretch of merchants' houses with original façade details.
- The pastorie — the parish presbytery, set back behind the church.
- Hotel Bos en Ven — historic hospitality with a particularly fine terrace.
- Several stepped-gable houses and the old farmhouses absorbed into the row as the village grew around them.
Markets, music and processions
De Lind hosts the village's outdoor markets, summer concerts, and occasional festivals; the wider events calendar can be checked at our events page. In December, lights and a Christmas market animate the green; in summer, the terraces overflow onto the grass and a children's funfair sometimes sets up.
How to make a good visit
Don't rush. The point of De Lind is that it rewards lingering. A good plan: arrive mid-morning, walk its length once just to look up at the buildings, then choose one of the cafés on the sunny side and settle in. The light is best in early evening, when the low sun rakes across the western facades and the lime leaves turn translucent. If you want photographs, do that walk first.