The Hawes Inn Yew

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote part of Kidnapped at the Hawes Inn, and both the City of Edinburgh Council and the Ancient Yew Group say this yew was already growing in its garden when he stayed. The inn had been in literature before him. Walter Scott set scenes of The Antiquary here, in a novel published in 1816. Whether the yew was there for Scott is a closer call. The council puts it at about 200 years old and calls it one of the largest yews in Edinburgh. The Ancient Yew Group thinks it probably early Victorian, which would make it a little younger than Scott's book. Neither has a planting record, so the honest answer is somewhere between 150 and 250 years. The measurements disagree too, and for a reason. This is not a single-trunked tree but a cluster of stems, broad rather than tall. The Ancient Yew Group put a tape round the base and got 370 centimetres. The council gives a diameter of 173 centimetres, which would mean a much fatter tree. On a yew with several stems, where you hold the tape decides the number. The garden belongs to the pub and is open to its customers, and the council notes you can also see the tree from the public footpath. The inn sits on the shore of the Forth at South Queensferry, at the north-western edge of the city.