The Craigmillar Castle Yews

Two yew trees have guarded the courtyard entrance to Craigmillar Castle since before anyone thought to write down when they were planted. Historic Environment Scotland dates them to at least 300 years, but the popular story pushes them back further: local tradition holds they were planted to honour Mary, Queen of Scots during her stay here in 1566, recovering after the birth of her son James VI. That would make them over 450 years old, a gap of a century and a half between the cautious estimate and the romantic one that no ring count can settle, since living yews rot from the inside and take their birth certificate with them. What is certain is the castle itself: a five-hundred-year-old ruin of vaulted halls and spiral stairs, seat of the Preston family and, for three weeks in 1566, the site of the Craigmillar Bond, the meeting where Mary's advisors first discussed getting rid of her troublesome husband Lord Darnley. The yews watched that plotting happen, whichever decade they were planted in. They still stand exactly where the castle's builders put them, framing the entrance the same way they have for centuries, evergreen through every season Craigmillar has seen since.