On the banks of the River Gryffe in Renfrewshire stands what looks like a small grove of yews and is in fact one tree. A male yew somewhere between five and seven centuries old has spent much of that time doing what yews do when nobody stops them: its branches arch down, touch the ground, take root, and send up new stems of their own. A path has been cut through the result, so a visitor walks inside what reads as a thicket but shares one root system throughout. Its trunk measures 8.68 metres round, recorded in 2016, and the canopy has grown from 74 metres in circumference when a Victorian naturalist measured it in 1890 to roughly 100 metres today, a century of continuous spread that is itself a kind of proof the tree has stayed one thing. Fire and vandalism have scarred it in the past; conservation work in 2018 cleared the grove and the tree answered with new leader growth. One local source stretches the age toward 800 or 900 years and a Knights Templar connection, worth reading as folklore rather than measurement, since girth-per-year is a rough rule even on an ordinary trunk, let alone one that spreads by layering. It stands on former Craigends Estate ground beside a modern housing estate, free to reach on foot with no gate and no ticket, and was shortlisted for Scotland's Tree of the Year in 2016.
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Getting there
Near Gryfebank Avenue, Craigends, Houston, Renfrewshire PA6 7NY, beside the River Gryffe
You can recognise it as what looks like a small grove of yews but is one tree, its branches arching down, rooting and rising again; a path is cut through the middle of it. It stands on former Craigends Estate ground beside the River Gryffe.
Free, public footpath access on former Craigends Estate ground, now beside a housing estate by the River Gryffe; an internal path is cut through the grove itself. No fee, no fixed hours.
No direct train; nearest station is Johnstone, then bus/taxi, or a bus from Glasgow (roughly 45 min) to stops on Barochan Road/Craig Road near Houston. Not within the ~30 minute day-trip boundary of Glasgow (17 miles / ~45-47 min by bus, no direct train), so this does not join the Glasgow page honestly.
In fruit
September to November: red arils on female trees, the only part that is not poisonous
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.