The yew tree, a firm favourite of the Welsh and English longbow archer, synonymous as a guardian of most churchyards, and with that, here’s cool fact: There at least 500 yew trees in English and Welsh churchyards which are older than the buildings themselves. But hey, aside from all that, how this clutch of super oldies at Kingley Vale near Chichester survived the woodcutters axe, disease and the farmers plough is a mystery to me.
Each of these sprawling giants, a few well over 1000 years old, hunkered down from sea storms, watched over by Bronze Age barrows are a sight to behold. Folklore suggests a shattered Danish army, during the Alfred The Great’s many battles, now sleeps peacefully underneath each barrow. Their presence drifts above me, as I bask in spring birdsong echoing through elderly branches, like enwrapping arms to hold. Sitting together for so long, those burial mounds and this growing evergreen find their pasts truly entwined.
Its a wild guess to put a true age on these trees dotting the gently curving landscape, a slither mind you of what it once was, as recent human actively during a one of the many 20th century wars grubbed up many. However, do not fret, as what remains is still utterly beautifully. It’s worth a pause here, as there is not a place like this is in the whole of England.
Now my still images could never do justice to actually being here, how could they. Like breathing the scent of the Sistine Chapel, to feeling the damp cool of the White Tower in London, to stepping through the forest of columns within Cordoba’s great mosque, some places have to be experienced at a ground level to get a real feel.
Layering has created a cylindrical cycle that witnesses the ancestors still a part of every tree which binds to this hillside. As each weathers the ages, so heavy branches swing low to the ground, until over time, these brittle arms scoop up the earth, drive new roots and slowly supersede the older parent.
Wandering through dappled warm April sunshine, under this canopy of living relics has a pure majesty all of its own. If there was such a thing as ghosts, you’d definitely get a tingle round here.
