As you enter or leave the Church you cannot fail to notice this ageing evergreen tree, perhaps as old as the original church. A local resident recorded the tree in a painting of the church in 1806 shows it well-established then.

Yews are closely connected with churchyards, evergreen indicating eternal life and the death of winter, but they are also a custom carried over from pagan holy places, often the same sites now occupied by the Christian Church building.

It is certainly an aspect of Lyneham, Church worth preserving, and has therefore been treated, propped and secured during recent times.

The Yew Tree
Yews are a symbol of immortality. Ancient peoples were in the habit of planting yew trees as acts of sanctification near to where they expected to be buried. Over the centuries, it has been widely planted in churchyards as an ornamental tree.

The tree has a reputation for living longer than almost any other species in the UK. There is an old yew at Fortingall in Glen Lyon, Scotland which might be 2000 years old. The trunk is erect, usually much divided, with thin red-brown bark. The leaves and seeds of yew are very poisonous to stock.

An important anti-cancer drug is produced from yew hedge clippings. Yew is a resilient tree which will tolerate a lot of shade and withstand smoke and salty winds. Yew wood is amongst the densest of all conifers and is elastic so was once used for making long bows, spears and dagger handles.

The yew's reputation for long life is due to the unique way in which the tree grows.

Its branches grow down into the ground to form new stems, which then rise up around the old central growth as separate but linked trunks. After a time, they cannot be distinguished from the original tree.

So the yew has always been a symbol of death and rebirth, the new that springs out of the old, and a fitting tree for us to study at the beginning of this new year. As the days now grow longer with the beginning of a new solar cycle, we move into the future on the achievements of the past, new creativity springs forth grounded in the accomplishments of the year gone by.

Description: A tree 40 to 50 feet high, forming with age a very stout trunk covered with red-brown, peeling bark and topped with a rounded or wide-spreading head of branches; leaves spirally attached to twigs, but by twisting of the stalks brought more or less into two opposed ranks, dark, glossy, almost black-green above, grey, pale-green or yellowish beneath, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches long, 1/16 to 1/12 inch wide.

Flowers unisexual, with the sexes invariably on different trees, produced in spring from the leaf axils of the preceding summer's twigs.Male, a globose cluster of stamens; female, an ovule surrounded by small bracts, the so-called fruit bright red, sometimes yellow, juicy and encloses the seed.

No tree is more associated with the history and legends of Great Britain than the Yew. Before Christianity was introduced it was a sacred tree favoured by the Druids, who built their temples near these trees - a custom followed by the early Christians. The association of the tree with places of worship still prevails.

Many cases of poisoning amongst cattle have resulted from eating parts of the Yew.

Constituents: The fruit and seeds seem to be the most poisonous parts of the tree. An alkaloid taxine has been obtained from the seeds; this is a poisonous, white, crystalline powder, only slightly soluble in water; another principle, Milossin, has also been found.