The north door yews of St Edward's, Stow-on-the-Wold

Nobody has proved that Tolkien ever stood at this door, and the door hardly needs him. Two yews grow tight against the north porch of St Edward's, one on each side, and over the centuries their trunks have become part of the doorframe. The stone arch sits between them like something they are holding up. Locals call it the Tolkien door, and Stow Civic Society says it is rumoured to have inspired the Doors of Durin in The Lord of the Rings. Rumoured is the honest word, and the Diocese of Gloucester calls the link unconfirmed. How old the pair are is a real disagreement. The civic society says the porch was built about 300 years ago and young yews were planted to dress the entrance. Yet in 1897 a visiting archaeological society already called them ancient, two trees which seem to embrace the entrance. We follow the civic society and keep the band broad, roughly 250 to 350 years. They are not huge. When the Ancient Yew Group measured them in 2006, the two male trunks were 196 and 201 centimetres round at four feet, slim by churchyard standards. Thomas Pakenham put them in Meetings with Remarkable Trees anyway, and you can see why. Plenty of churchyard yews stand beside a door. These two have grown into the frame.