On paper this yew has been shrinking for a century. In 1894 a Wiltshire archaeological journal recorded 18 feet 6 inches. In 1938 Arthur Mee gave 20 feet. Tim Hills measured 15 feet 8 in 1998, and 16 feet 1 in 2011, which Peter Norton matched in 2015. The tree has not lost four feet. The early figures were taken at different heights on the trunk, and where you hold the tape on a yew changes everything. The modern readings agree at about 4.9 metres, and that is the number we use. It grows just two metres from the wall of All Saints, nearer the building than you would think a tree of this size could stand. The Ancient Yew Group's girth bands class a yew of this size as ancient. On that basis the estimate is broad, several hundred years, somewhere between about 300 and 600, with no dating behind it. You can reach it without a car. Kemble station, with direct trains from London Paddington and Swindon, is about a kilometre from the churchyard, and the yew is the tree pressed against the church.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
All Saints Church, Kemble, Gloucestershire GL7 6AD
You can recognise it by how close it grows to the church, only about two metres from the wall of All Saints. It stands in the churchyard in the middle of the village, about a kilometre from Kemble station.
Open churchyard (Ancient Yew Group lists access as public; church parochial church council ground). Free, no opening hours.
Kemble village, close to Kemble railway station (about 1 km) (direct trains from London Paddington and Swindon).
In fruit
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.