Ageing Yew

Sawing up logs for fire wood today. This one was from the branch of an old yew growing outside the kitchen window. It's an odd place for such a tree. How long has it been there? Yews grow very slowly and can live a very long time; longer than any other species. Could this one date to when the house was built over 200 years ago?

It is a difficult tree to date. You can try counting the rings on this limb but what does that tell you? You'd need to core the trunk for a more authentic estimate. But yews also have a tendency to sprout several trunks, like buttresses. The one here has perhaps 12 sections; are they all the same age? Some authorities suggest you can age the tree from its height or girth or a combination of both. But this one has been lopped in the past and we have since pruned some of its sprawling branches, like this one.

In 'The tree of the cross - In search of the Fortingall yew' (Granta 102, published 2008), Richard Mabey describes the yew as "an ancient British citizen, present here, give or take the odd ice age, for a couple of million years". The Fortingall yew is reputed to be between 2000 and 5000 years old. (Plenty scope for error there!) And some believe it was even the birth place of Pontius Pilate. The yew is full of symbolism and has been adopted by Druids and Christians alike. It's common to find yews in church yards but often they are older than the buildings. Some claim this shows that christian churches were built on sites previously used by Druids. You can make up your own minds.

There is no church in this old community. Perhaps the yew here indicates that This OldHouse was the site of a former church or even a Druid temple! But then, it was probably planted in the last century.