Photo: Philafrenzy (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The oldest living thing in London stands in a churchyard most people drive straight past.
Ancient trees in the United Kingdom
Britain's oldest trees are yews, and it is churches, not palaces, that kept most of them standing. This page maps 68 remarkable trees across 8 cities in the United Kingdom, each one researched and verified. The oldest of them is The Totteridge Yew in London, at 2000 years.
London's Totteridge Yew is put at two thousand years old, roughly a millennium and a half older than the church built beside it, one of many British yews reckoned to predate Christianity in these islands. Oaks tell a different story: a mild, fire-free climate let them stand long enough to earn names tied to real dates, a Domesday Oak already growing when the Conquest was surveyed in 1086, a Royal Oak enclosed inside a park wall in 1637 because it was already centuries old. Age here survives less through law than inheritance, a landed estate, a cathedral close, a royal park that changed hands but never changed use. Eight cities are mapped so far, from Edinburgh's botanic garden to Oxford's college quadrangles, and wherever a yew appears it tends to win on age.
Every mapped city in the United Kingdom
1London23 trees · oldest 2000 years2
Edinburgh15 trees · oldest 300-450 years3
York6 trees · oldest 150 years4
Bath5 trees · oldest 290 years5
Bristol5 trees · oldest 700 years6
Cambridge5 trees · oldest 417 years7
Oxford5 trees · oldest 700+ years8
Glasgow4 trees · oldest 450-500 years
London23 trees · oldest 2000 years2Edinburgh15 trees · oldest 300-450 years3York6 trees · oldest 150 years4Bath5 trees · oldest 290 years5Bristol5 trees · oldest 700 years6Cambridge5 trees · oldest 417 years7Oxford5 trees · oldest 700+ years8Glasgow4 trees · oldest 450-500 years34 species grow in the United Kingdom
Oaks Pedunculate Oak 3 · Holm Oak 2 · Hungarian Oak 1 · Hybrid Oak 1
Beeches Sweet Chestnut 3 · European Beech 2
Elms and zelkovas Caucasian Elm 2 · Camperdown Elm 1 · Huntingdon Elm 1 · Wentworth Elm 1
Planes London Plane 10 · Oriental Plane 3
Limes Small-leaved Lime 1
Maples Sycamore 3
Figs and mulberries Black Mulberry 5 · Common Fig 1 · White Mulberry 1
Conifers European Yew 6 · Giant Sequoia 3 · Cedar of Lebanon 2 · Coast Redwood 1 · Dawn Redwood 1 · Monkey Puzzle 1
Fruit and blossom Apple 1 · Elaeagnus-Leaved Pear 1
More broadleaf trees Japanese Pagoda Tree 2 · Catacol Whitebeam 1 · Common Alder 1 · European Ash 1 · Handkerchief Tree 1 · Hemsley's Whitebeam 1 · Hornbeam 1 · Narrow-Leaved Ash 1 · Tree of Heaven 1
The oldest tree mapped in the United Kingdom
Trees from the United Kingdom also appear in Europe's Ancient Oaks You Can Actually Visit · Europe's 10 Most Remarkable Ancient Trees · Europe's Most Remarkable Yews. See every city on the map, or open the map to find what is near you.