Well, I went to visit the Yew tree. Was very much a first visit, a sort of introduction and saying hello.
It is an amazing tree - though not in the usual sense of hugeness. It was more a collection of micro ecologies, each deeply connected.
The split trunk rises up out of the ground, which was covered in a deep layer of fallen yew berries - so many that when I walked out I had to scrape about an inch deep off my shoes and then hose them clean back at home.
It is possible to walk up and through the gap between the trunks where the original tree centre appears to have turned into soil. There are numerous roots running from both sides interweaving with each other and forming rudimentary steps.
There are the usual higher branches, many of which, yew like, are skeletal and patterned or twisted.
There are burls both on the outside of the trunks and within the inner space that are sprouting dense short branches that look more like yew hedges.
Some of the burls have died and the wood is a mixture of the yellow/brown and green. There are lichens growing in various places.
In the centre of the trunks the wood is decomposing and some holes are visible through all the layers of wood. In one of the centres is a thick yew root that is clearly feeding another tree somewhere up in the crown area - impossible to tell where the old and newer begin and end.
There are spaces where spiders webs have clearly been a long time and a profusion of thin and thick dead branches within the crown and central space.
The tree is clearly used by non-Christians, I saw a coin pushed into the dead wood in the centre and a variety of things hung up in the centre.
Here are some photos from the web - I took a few myself but I'm not on any image websites, so if anyone can assist I'll send some pictures over....
Note the root growing up through the centre of the tree.
