The Adlestrop churchyard yew

Until 2012 nobody had written this yew down. It had stood by the west wall of this Cotswold churchyard for centuries, and the Ancient Yew Group only added it to their register after Lin Carter found it that year. Then Tim Hills came to measure, and the tape went round to 6.33 metres, taken near the ground where the two trunks meet. Two trunks, because this is a split tree. It is a male yew in two fragments joined low down, the larger about 14 feet round and the smaller about 10, both heavily wrapped in ivy. Hills thought they looked like sections of one once larger tree. The girth is measured around both together at the base, so it reads bigger than a chest-height figure would. The Ancient Yew Group's girth bands put a yew of this size in the ancient class, likely over 500 years. That is an estimate from size, not a dating, but on it the yew is older than most of St Mary Magdalene's church, whose tower is 14th or 15th century and whose body was rebuilt between 1750 and 1764. Someone has put a curved seat round its south side. It is the right instinct. This is a tree for sitting next to, slowly.