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The Great Yew-Tree
Adjoining the church to the south-west is the Great Yew-Tree. Its girth, which was 15 feet in 1793 and over 18 feet in 1930, is now (at 5 feet from the ground) more than 20 feet. As the trunk is hollow the increase may be partly due to the spreading of the split sides of the trunk. Some of the branches reach out to a distance of 30 feet. The tree is, as Gilbert White wrote of the Selbourne yew, “probably coeval with the church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity”. Various reasons have been suggested for the planting of yew-trees in church-yards; to screen the church from the violence of the wind; to provide wood for long-bows (but see below); to shelter the assembling congregation; and to serve, by their funereal appearance, as an emblem of mortality.
The Yew was carbon dated in the mid 1980’s and a certificate stating that it is over 1,000 years old will be found on the wall by the font.
The yew tree can be seen, behind an oak tree which no longer exists, in this old view of the west end of the church in about 1850. It shows the thatched shed where the (non resident) clergyman used to leave his horse.
Note: from “Longbow” by Robert Hardy - quoted with his permission in St. Nicholas Church.
“My own belief is that on the whole yews stand about churches because often churches were built on what was sacred ground to the ‘old religion’, and to the old religion the yew was a sacred tree, a symbol of eternity. The Christian religion took over the idea, as it did so many others, and the dark melancholy trees were accepted as suitable around new places of worship, symbols still of death and eternity.
Were bows made from them? From time to time, no doubt: but it is worth noting that when Henry V, before the campaign of 1415, sent Nicholas Frost, his principal bowyer, round England to gather yew wood for bows, he expressly forbade him to take timber from any ecclesiastical land. On the other hand, medieval butts were often close by the church, and many churches bear on their lower stone courses grooves where arrowheads were sharpened and cleaned during practice.”
Longbow, page 186.
