Many village churchyards boast a large yew tree, and often more than one, but no two people agree as to just why it’s there. Some of our churches are a thousand years old, but in places the trees are even older - no-one knows quite how old as yews are notoriously difficult to date. It has even been said that they are relics of pagan worship. So let’s have a look at the story of the churchyard yew, and in particular at some fine specimens close at hand. Yew trees certainly featured in Celtic religion, symbolizing the mystical continuity of life, and in the same way may have become a meeting place for early Christian missionaries, to whom their significance was a reminder of eternity and constancy of faith.

These missionaries built their own churches in the same spot, first of wood and then of stone, many of which remain scattered in lonely places among the Downs of Sussex and Hampshire.

In 1307, Edward I ordered that yew trees be planted in churchyards to protect the buildings from high winds and storms, and at the same time to keep animals out of the churchyard, as they are poisonous to livestock. Yews will grow in any soil, but thrive where it is alkaline. Consequently they are scarce in East Anglia, but are found from the west of Wales to the north of Scotland. In the south of England they are particularly common, and the most famous yew wood in Europe is at Kingley Vale, just north of Chichester, whose mysteries I have described before in these columns.

The finest churchyard yew I know is at Much Marcle, in Herefordshire. Its branches spread seventy feet and are supported by a huge iron frame, whilst its trunk, which is quite hollow, is thirty feet in girth. From time immemorial it has been a meeting place, and six people can sit comfortably on the seats inside the hollow trunk.

The most famous tree in Hampshire used to be at Selborne. Gilbert White measured its girth as 23 ft 9 in in 1789, and it subsequently became one of the best known trees in the kingdom. It was blown down in the storm of January 1990, but was re-erected and seemed to be surviving, although it eventually died and the stump has been left to decay. An altar made from parts of the wood has been erected inside the church. The stump of another famous yew remains at Privett, now covered with brambles. The new church was built too close and the tree was heavily pollarded, causing it to die. It was perhaps one of the hundred oldest in the country.

Three other fine, healthy yews nearby are all found beside churches which can claim Saxon origin, so it could well be they were there before the present buildings. Corhampton church retains many of its original features, and its yew is 24 ft in girth, with a fine, clean trunk and branches which have been allowed to reach the ground and become embedded in the earth.

At Priors Dean the tree is even bigger, measuring 26 ft just above the ground. It was first mentioned as long ago as 1848 in A Topographical Dictionary of England. At Newton Valance, close by, the trunk is smaller, a mere 18 ft. in girth, but the tree appears larger, as the branches trail across the path and among the gravestones. The hollow parts are filled with concrete. There are other fine yews at Bramshott, Greatham Old Church, Hawkley and Steep, all growing and changing imperceptibly as the years and the centuries pass, and witness to more than a thousand years of village life.

Tom Muckley, November 2007

This article was originally published by the Petersfield Post

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