Meet Tisbury's Ancient Yew Tree

Meet Tisbury’s Ancient Yew Tree

By Mary Myers, TisTalk

The yew tree that stands in Tisbury’s church yard is perhaps 4,000 years old. Its age is disputed but let’s imagine she (yes it’s female) was planted - or a bird dropped a yew berry and it started growing – in 2025 BC. That was the late Stone Age, when Tisbury was probably inhabited by the Beaker people, who built a small stone henge near the present day Tithe Barn.

The Beaker people were early Celts who farmed, hunted and gathered, and lived in thatched huts in the Nadder Valley. Celtic people (mostly the women) would have gathered water from the Nadder river,  just near the Yew. Later Celts, the Durotriges tribe, were probably Druids, who worshipped the sun and moon, as well as rivers, trees and all natural things, including almost certainly our Tisbury Yew. 

Yew trees are magic!  They are evergreen and live for thousands of years. But their berries are poisonous - eating 20 seeds will kill you - although squirrels which eat the berries are immune. Yews are symbols of both life and death. 

The fact that our Yew stands next to the present day St John’s Church and just by the confluence of two rivers, the Oddford Brook and the Nadder, is no coincidence. Before Christianity the locals would have held rivers sacred, as well as our Yew. Early Christians during the late Roman era were savvy enough to keep the ancient sacred sites and just change the rituals.

So much for our Yew’s possible ancient origins… Why does our Tisbury Yew appear to be growing around a big concrete block?  The answer lies in much more recent history. Fast forward 3,900 years, to Victorian times, and our Yew had grown to an immense 37 feet in circumference. It was so big and hollow that, in around 1834, seventeen people were supposed to have “breakfasted in its interior” after “entering by means of a rustic gate”.

But internal growth in the hollow cavity soon became overwhelmed and was thought to be losing capacity to sustain part of the tree, so a botanist from Kew Gardens was called in. His advice was to fill it with concrete, which is now thought to be bad practice. But our Yew survived and continues to thrive and still has a good head of healthy foliage and bright red (poisonous!) berries.

For more on Tisbury’s famous Yew, see:

Books:

Christina Richard, 2018, The Grotto Makers: Joseph and Josiah Lane of Tisbury, Hobnob Press

Jill and Peter Drury, 1980, A Tisbury History, Element Books

Website: St John’s Church, Tisbury

Online videos:

Dan Snow’s ‘The History Guy’ Instagram features Tisbury’s Yew 'One of the Oldest Trees in Britain'

Samantha Adams, 2018, The great Yews of historical England in Tisbury-Wiltshire

On TisTalk we feature The Yew Tree Chronicles, a humorous take on Tisbury’s history, seen through the eyes of our famous Yew. Voiced by our wonderful Liz Coyle-Camp, it’s written by Julie Ann Murphy, with music by Tom Davison and a greenfinch.