Quel est l'arbre le plus vieux de Brighton ?

Yews resist dating. The heartwood rots away long before the rings can be counted, so an estimate rests on girth, on setting and on how the tree has been managed, and here the council and the Ancient Yew Group both settle on over 500 years for a trunk 5.94 metres round. Local tradition goes a great deal further and calls the tree Saxon, a thousand years and more. Neither body repeats that, and it is folklore rather than measurement. What is documented is how long the yews have been noticed: a drawing from around 1780 shows them, and in 1833 J.D. Parry put two curious old yew-trees in this churchyard into print. The companion measures 5.64 metres. Brighton's other candidates are elms, which is what the city is known for, and none of them comes close: the oldest, the surviving Preston Twin, was planted around 1613. Stanmer Park is a twenty to twenty-five minute walk from Falmer station through the parkland, and the churchyard sits in the old estate village at the far end, free and open in daylight.