The clipped yews of St Mary's, Painswick

Painswick's churchyard is supposed to hold 99 yews, because legend says the Devil will kill any hundredth. The parish has tested it. In 2000, when parishes in the Diocese of Gloucester were given yews for the millennium, a hundredth went in. The Victoria and Albert Museum once counted 103, and the church's own plan shows 100. Nobody agrees on the number, so we will not give you one. Call it about a hundred and count them yourself. They are not ancient. The National Trail says most were planted in the early 18th century, roughly 300 years ago, while another account puts them in the 1790s. Either way they share the ground with a collection of chest tombs that begins in the early 17th century. What makes the place is the scissors. Every September the yews are clipped back into rounded and pom-pom shapes along the path to the tower, and more than two tons of clippings are collected each year. Fresh yew clippings are a source of paclitaxel, a drug used in cancer treatment, so the trim has a second life. The Ancient Yew Group calls it an exceptional site. It is the opposite of a single veteran trunk. It is a whole churchyard of yews, roughly three centuries old and trimmed like a hedge.