Llanfaredd Yew

The Llanfaredd yew was measured at 36 feet round in 1811 and at 30 feet 3 inches in 2015. The tape has gone round at different heights over those two centuries, three feet up in 1982 and two in 1998, so the figures say as much about the measuring as about the tree. In 1874 the diarist Francis Kilvert wrote that the little church was half hidden by its great yew. It still fills the west side of the churchyard, a battered trunk with a complex of interlocking hollows low down and, when a recorder looked in 2000, a full crown above them. A smaller yew stands near the south-west entrance. How old is it? The Church in Wales heritage record says one yew here is believed to be 3,000 years old. It names no source, and the same record says elsewhere that no notable trees are connected with the church, so it contradicts itself. The Ancient Yew Group says there is no agreement even about the age of the site. Some think it early medieval. Others point to the tumuli on the hill and a spring east of the church and suggest something older. The evidence, the Group says, is yet to be found. The church has a bell reported to date from about 1280 and was largely rebuilt in 1891. The churchyard is still used for burials, on the east side of the Wye valley about 3 km from Builth Wells.