Wildlife writer Jane Adams explores the fascinating history and potentially fragile future of Dorset’s ancient yew trees
Yews are a common sight in Dorset, but how many of us truly appreciate them? I admit I often haven’t. So, when a friend told me about an ancient yew growing just a few miles from my home, I felt a strong urge to pay it a visit.
The oldest yew in the UK is thought to be the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire. Estimates put its age at a mind-boggling 2,000 to 9,000 years old. Although the tree I’m visiting is not as old, it is still likely to pre-date the 800-year-old church next door.
As I pick my way through the churchyard towards the yew, its sheer size takes my breath away.
In a parish magazine from 1897, the rector of the time recorded it as being 24 feet around the trunk. The following March, after heavy snow, one side of the trunk collapsed. I run my hands across its warm, red bark, and the healing that has taken place in the intervening years is obvious.
Yews have a remarkable ability to send up new shoots and roots: if the trunk dies or is damaged, a new one emerges inside, bringing the entire tree back to life – they can literally regenerate. No wonder the yew tree came to symbolise immortality.
I wish they were immortal. But like any tree they are still susceptible to disease and damage, be it environmental or through human stupidity. In fact, it’s a miracle so many remain.
One area of Dorset particularly rich in yews is the eastern area of Cranborne Chase. Here there is a whole grove of mighty yews, and some of the oldest individual yew trees in Dorset. From late Saxon times, this was an area that came under the protection of large ecclesiastical estates. Then, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, their guardianship fell to wealthy landowners –something that continues today.
Though these ancient giants may be on private land, the yews in our local churchyards are still accessible – and touchable. But what protection do they have? Please ask your local parish or town council if your local yew has a Tree Protection Order. We protect buildings … we should be protecting our ancient natural heritage as well.
Did yew know?
- Yews are evergreen with needle-like leaves, and they are dioecious, meaning they have male and female trees
- Blackbirds, thrushes and dormice eat yew seeds, enclosed in the berry-like red ‘arils’, but the seeds are poisonous to livestock and humans.
- During mediaeval times, thousands of yew trees were felled here and in Europe to supply the English army’s 5,000 to 7,000 archers with longbows.
- In the last 60 years, scientists have discovered a compound in yew bark which is now used in chemotherapy drugs to target lung and breast cancer. However, this remarkable discovery sadly led to the decimation of all American yew woods and many in Asia.
- Almost 85 per cent of our veteran (over 500 years old) and ancient (over 800 years old) yews in the UK are growing in churchyards. Of the 406 churches in Dorset, 197 have large yew trees growing nearby. These trees are scientifically, culturally and nationally important … and mostly unprotected.
- Romans believed yews grew in hell, while in Spain people placed yew branches on windows for lightning protection. Julius Caesar observed that Druids considered the yew tree a sacred symbol of immortality and the Celts believed yew twigs held healing powers and preserved the dead.
- To learn more about Dorset’s yews – and yews in general – go to ancient-yew.org
