Lanercost Priory Yews
Lanercost, Cumberland
Half a dozen people can fit inside the leaning yew at Lanercost, through a small hole in its hollow shell, according to Ken Mills's Cumbrian Yew Book of 1999. The tree has taken hard knocks to get there. A gale in November 1891 tore away much of its crown, and when John Lowe described it a few years later it was hollow, broken at fifteen feet and forming a new head. Since then it has hardly widened. Lowe gave it 14 feet round at three feet up in 1896 or 1897. A hundred years on, Graham Wilkinson found 14 feet 8 inches, and Tim Hills of the Ancient Yew Group 14 feet 5 inches in 2002. Taken at the ground, where the lean stretches it, the figure is 5.44 metres. It stands in the burial ground north-east of the priory church, close beside a female yew. She has a patch of old white sapwood showing and traces at her base of a twin trunk that was lost. Wilkinson also noted another large yew to the south, near the Prior's House. The priory ruins are in the care of English Heritage. No source gives either tree an age, and the last measurement was taken in 2002. If you visit, tell us how the pair are doing and send a photograph.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Lanercost Priory churchyard, Lanercost, Brampton
You can recognise it by its lean and the small hole into its hollow shell, with a female yew close beside it. They stand in the burial ground north-east of the priory church.
No station in the village. Lanercost is a few miles from Brampton; check the local bus operator for buses.
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.