Ancient yew trees dusted in snow stand sentinel in many churchyards around the country as worshippers gather for the Christmas service. Richard Mabey celebrates this close but cryptic connection.
Amature yew is a compelling sight whatever its situation. It has the densest, darkest foliage of any evergreen and a buttressed trunk that comes close to the colour of mahogany. Its wood is reputed to outlive iron. A 250,000 - year - old yew - spear found atClacton in Essex is the worlds oldest known wooden artefact. Yet what sets yews most decisively apart from other trees found in Britain is the remarkable and probably unique association that they have with our ancient churches.
At least 500 churchyards in England and Wales alone contain yew trees that arc certainly as old as the building itself, and quite likely a good deal older. Yews of great age are rare outside churchyards, and no other type of ancient tree occurs so frequently inside church grounds. I do not know of any similarly exclusive relationship between places of worship and a single tree species existing anywhere else in the western world.
It is obviously a meaningful association, however cryptic, and when you contemplate yews of extreme age, it is hard not to believe that the meaning is a profound one. Even modest, middle - aged yews can have a powerful presence. The tree that stands on a mound at the southern corner of St Peters church in Berkhamsted is probably no more than 350 years old. It was a local tradition for townspeople to gather under it on New Years Eve, which I can remember persisting until the early 1960s. On windy nights in the heart of winter, the twigs still stream above the High Street like ceremonial bunting.
It is no wonder that ancient yews have been the subject of all manner of theories and myths about their origins, age and meanings. At school we were taught that the mound on which the Berkhamsted tree stands contained our towns plague victims; and yews were certainly once planted over graves to protect and purify the dead. There have also been more mundane explanations for the yews presence in churchyards. They were planted in these protected plots to provide wood for longbows and to keep their poisonous foliage out of the reach of browsing cattle; to provide decoration for the church, or as a memento mori.
The occurrence of old yews in old churchyards is reflected in the trees distribution. Yew is principally a species of well - drained chalk and limestone soils. In ancient woods it grows in the company of beech, maple and ash, and on sheer slopes such as Stoner Hill in Hampshire, it can look dramatic in winter, silhouetted against the white plumes of old mans beard. But yews sticky red berries are popular with birds, and bird - sown seedlings will colonise open chalk downland as well, forming dark thickets under which nothing else can grow.