Bettws Newydd Yew

Inside the hollow shell of the big yew at St Aeddan's stands another trunk, a column of new wood the old tree has grown within itself. Tim Hills of the Ancient Yew Group measured that inner stem at 6 feet 6 inches round in 2025. The shell around it is 33 feet, about ten metres, by the figure in The Sacred Yew of 1994. The tape has been round it for nearly 150 years. The Gardeners' Chronicle gave 30 feet 6 inches in 1877, Hyde and Harrison 31 feet a century later, Allen Meredith 33 feet in 1983. The monument guide Wondermondo calls it one of the largest yews in the UK. That ranking is theirs. Two more big yews share the churchyard, both male. One leans towards the church on the east side, its trunk dividing about ten feet up. The other was half lost in undergrowth by the north wall when the Group last looked. The church is said to stand where St Aedan of Ferns had an oratory before AD 570, though nothing of that survives. The building probably began in the 12th century, most of what stands is 15th-century, and the yews were first written down in 1848. Storm Dennis closed the church in 2020; it reopened in 2024. Nobody has published an age for the tree, and we will not guess one. If you know of a credible figure, tell us.