John Knox's Yew

John Knox's Yew is not where John Knox stood. Around 1900, during alterations to Finlaystone House, the yew was moved about 30 metres rather than felled, and it survived the move. A tree now reckoned to be somewhere between 400 and 800 years old was shifted across the grounds and kept growing. The Knox part of the story rests on 1556. In that year the reformer led a communion service at Finlaystone for the family of the Earl of Glencairn, which accounts of the house's history confirm. Tradition adds that he preached under this yew. Some say he planted it. Others say it was already old when he arrived, and Scotland's Yew Tree Heritage Initiative, which classes it as ancient, sides with neither. Nobody has published a girth or a height. It grows as two stems, and its north-facing side carries a thinner, less healthy crown than the rest, possibly from storm damage since the move. The only photograph we can find was taken in 1981, so we cannot say how it looks now. If you visit, tell us. Finlaystone is a visitor estate of gardens and woodland run by a ranger service above the Clyde at Langbank. Admission fees and opening times apply, so check the estate's own site before you go.