The Ancient Yews of Northern England

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I am a photographer (and member of the Forum). I have seen that my fellow founder member of the Ancient Yew Group, Andy McGeeney, has contributed a feature item on the Borrowdale Yews and I am keen to add to that. My story involves the Borrowdale trees but also other yews in the valley and in northern England in general.

Generally speaking the largest tree of the Borrowdale Yews is the one which gets the most attention. However I feel that all three yews of the group are visually spectacular in their own right and should receive equal attention as they are part of one original grove. In particular the tree which stands about 10 metres south from the other two (yew c on the attached images). It is indeed remarkable as it shows the amazing regenerative powers of the yew. It seems to have survived what seems to surely be a severe wound resulting from the loss of a major limb, no doubt to a storm, - you can see this by the difference in appearance from it's north and south faces.

In 2000 similar damage was caused to the main tree of the group when a large branch was blown down with the result that the canopy is now depleted by 50% to the west. So the image of the grove, which appears in Thomas Pakenham's 'Meetings with Remarkable Trees' is sadly no longer to be seen in such glory. However yew C shows that despite what appears to be a horrendous wounding to us, is not so to the yew and left alone it will survive without any human help.

In John Lowe's 'Yew-Trees of Great Britain and Ireland' a photo on page 69 shows the depleted grove recovering from the Great Storm of 1868. Although yew B lost a 9ft girth portion of it's trunk ( still in situ ) the regeneration of the site as described in Thomas Pakenham in word and images is very self evident.

When Wordsworth visited the grove at the beginning of the 19th century it was, like the yew at Lorton vale, much larger. At that time there was a fourth tree which was subsequently lost in the 19th century. The grove is a diminished remnant of what it was 2 centuries ago but is still an awesome location and 'holy spot'(see Pakenham). The storm in 2000 also removed a similar sized limb from the Lorton vale yew and so Wordsworth’s descriptions are not just poetry but also a historical record and perhaps a sad symbolism of what is happening to the environment in general.

Near the grove, below on the riverbank, is another yew, probably also very old/ancient and a direct offspring. This tree is undamaged by wind but stands on the pebbled bank of a beck. The beck can turn into a raging torrent at any time of the year and rage for days on end because this location, specifically a place called Seathwaite, is, after all, the wettest in England. So it too is a remarkable survivor as it has stood for certainly centuries at least and therefore in my opinion worthy to be included as part of the site as a whole.

However the Borrowdale valley, as I have discovered (I actually played a small part in the rediscovery of the Borrowdale Yews in the early 1990's because back then they were 'lost'according to the National Trust in a severe flood some decades before)has other yews. Some of these are large and have been estimated to be ancient. They can be found in a valley spur known as Stonethwaite. Some certainly old (at least 300 some probably 500 years plus) trees are by houses and farms and up on the mountains there are some small stunted yews which could be very ancient indeed.

The upland yews, lone trees and groves (King's Howe) include a 9ft girth tree at Low Scawdel which I photographed in 1992 and which appeared on page 165 of The Sacred Yew in 1994 mistakenly captioned as one of 'the' Borrowdale Yews. It has been since estimated to have the chracteristics of a very ancient tree and to support this radial growth rate for specifically cliff growing yews on Whitbarrow Scar in south Cumbria found 210 rings in 1.3cm of dead yew branch wood (Doug Larson, Cliff Ecology Research Group, University of Guelph, Ontario Canada 1997). Thus upland yews in Cumbria could be extremely slow growing generally and yews in this habitat could provide our oldest consistent ancient wild yew population.

My concern for these trees is that before they can be professionally investigated further and their probable enormous botanical and historical significance fully demonstrated (Doug Larson's work is the only specific study to date and his specimens were taken from cliff sites rather than scree slopes) we could lose them. Last year severe forest fires broke out in neighbouring valleys due to drought and irresponsible humanity and this is a trend which is predicted to continue. Professional protection at an emergency level is surely the minimum to ensure that the trees survive because they may well be not just some of the oldest yews in Britain but some of the oldest on the planet and as yet they are unrecognised in the main for their true potential.

Borrowdale is a microcosmic example of what could be found throughout
Cumbria and northern England, especially in the areas of upland limestone in north Yorkshire and Durham. It shows that there is a lot of looking yet to be done and I am looking for support, I have a list of 1500 sites so far with yew potential that need to be visited. Any advice in this regard would be appreciated.

I also attach an image of the yew at Beltingham, Northumberland which is reputed to be Saxon, at least 900 years old and the oldest tree in the county. The site of St Cuthbert's church is so named because it s one of the places the saint's body rested (for over a century)on it's way from Lindisfarne and eventually to Durham. It was also a place of pre Christian sanctity and known to the Romans as such.

In addition I am attaching some images of a yew I discovered at an anonymous site in Northumberland. Having had some confidential feedback about this huge and unique yew based on images and measurements of the base(around 33ft girth )-no one has apparently seen the like of it elsewhere in England so far. The tree has not layered any branches but has curled them about 12 ft up in the air at the edge of its 30 yard wide canopy and hence looks like a weeping willow. It has been estimated as at least 1500 years old. If this is the case then it is probably older than Beltingham and perhaps 'the' oldest tree in the county so far found.

It seems likely that ancient yew potential in northern England is very great. It is also very likely that a Northumbrian yew would have a slower metabolism than say a similarly sized one in a Hampshire churchyard. It therefore begs the question that given comparative girths the northern yews, especially those not in churchyards, could well be older than their southern cousins based clearly on colder climatic factors restricting growth.
 

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