Taxus
This rare, ancient night! For in here
Under the yew-tree tent
The darkness is secret, and I could sear
You like frankincense into scent
D H Lawrence
Yew trees have existed for some 140 million years, with the current European species, Taxus baccata, being at least fifteen million years old. Individual trees can live to extraordinary ages, up to several thousand years, and are one of the longest-lived tree species on our planet. Moreover, as the main trunks die and hollow out, new growth can appear from the outer parts of the trunk, or from roots.
All parts of the Yew tree, with the exception of the fleshy part of the red arils (berries), are highly toxic. The Yew’s longevity and toxicity, combined with its regenerative capacity, has given the tree a special place in human culture, a totem of death and rebirth. Yew motifs are shown in cave paintings, grave furniture made from Yew wood has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs.
72% of Britain’s 1200 ancient Yews are found in churchyards. Many are older than their host churches, suggesting that rather than the trees being planted in churchyards, the churches were built on earlier sacred pagan sites which already venerated these trees. The Yew in Coldwaltham churchyard is one of the twelve oldest specimens in the UK. Based on its immense girth of over ten metres, its age is estimated at 3,500 years.
In this first part of this project, I have focused on some of the trees themselves; most of the examples shown are “ancient” (older than 1000 years) specimens, primarily from the counties of East and West Sussex.
This second part of my Taxus project looks at the associations of the Yew tree with art and literature. For generations, the mythology of the Yew, particularly its symbolism of both death and immortality, has inspired artists to create new work.
The first photographs in this series include some of Newstead Abbey, the ancestral family home of Lord Byron, who enjoyed walks through avenues of Yews and whose formal gardens include trees and hedges shaped by expert topiarists.
A hollow ancient Yew in Iffley churchyard hosted the young Alice Liddell during a walk with author Lewis Carroll. Liddell hid in the hollow tree – an incident that reputedly inspired the scene where the fictional Alice disappears into a hollow tree after leaving the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
“It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!” Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But everything’s curious to-day. I think I may as well go in at once.” And in she went …
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822) referred to the Yew’s association with death in several of his songs and poems. An example is the closing verse to his song: Cold, Cold is the Blast When December Is Howling :
Not long lived, but over her grave
Waved the desolate form of a storm-blasted yew,
Around it no demons or ghosts dare to rave,
But spirits of peace steep her slumbers in dew.
Then stay thy swift steps mid the dark mountain heather,
Though chill blow the wind and severe is the weather,
For perfidy, traveller! cannot bereave her,
Of the tears, to the tombs of the innocent due.
The Yew has also been used to make a wide variety of wooden objects – from drinking vessels to musical instruments. But perhaps it tells us something about human nature that the first recorded use of the Yew was to make weapons. The world’s oldest known wooden artefact is a Yew spear tip known as the Clacton Spear. Found in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, in 1911, the Clacton Spear has been radio-carbon dated to ca 420,000 BCE. It is believed to have been made by Neanderthal man, or possibly Homo heidelbergensis.
More recently, the Yew tree was used for a different type of weapon, the longbow. For making longbows, staves are cut such that they include both hardwood and sapwood, this combination giving the bow a unique combination of strength and flexibility. Yew longbows were used to devastating effect during the hundred years war, including the Battle of Agincourt at which over 6,000 French soldiers were killed, mainly by English archers. When Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose was recovered in 1982, 172 longbows (and over 3,500 arrows) were found. Records show that these were made not from English Yew (this had already been massively felled before the beginning of the 1500’s) but from wood imported from continental Europe.
Another item recovered from the Mary Rose was this beautiful games table, used to play a precursor of the more recent game of backgammon. The box is made of oak, inlaid with either larch or spruce for the dark areas and Yew for the lighter triangles.
I would like to thank Dr Alex Hildred for her kind permission to photograph these artefacts from the Mary Rose.
Today, Yew is also used by modern craftsmen to make a variety of furniture and decorative items. This example, a turned vase, is by West Sussex craftsman, Niall Clutton:
These photographs were all taken on Ilford film, using a Hasselblad 503CW medium format camera. Prints were made on Ilford Warmtone Fibre-based paper.