THE DARLEY YEW. 107 



and it is supposed that they arc about 200 years old. They, 

 therefore, might reach 30 feet in girth in 1,000 years. They 

 have had many of their boughs cut off, and that has, no doubt, 

 very much retarded their growth in circumference ; they stand on 

 a high and exposed situation, and I doubt whether the soil there 

 is naturally as good as that of the churchyard ; and it can have 

 had no additional richness imparted to it. The great similarity of 

 these trees leads me to suspect that it must have arisen either 

 from some natural superiority in the trees, or from some other 

 peculiar cause. It appears to be very probable that the yews near 

 the Hall were grown from seeds of the yew in the churchyard. 

 This would not only acoount for their similarity, but would also 

 tend to show that there was some natural peculiarity in the latter. 



In the copy of the Register of Carsington, in Mr. Cox's 

 excellent work on the Derbyshire Churches,* it is stated that a 

 yew was planted in that churchyard in 1638; and I had it 

 measured in 1877, 2 39 years after it was planted, and it was ten 

 feet in girth at four feet from the ground ; and, if it continued to 

 grow at the same rate, it would be thirty feet in girth in 717 years. 

 Most, however, of its large branches have been cut off, and its 

 girth is consequently much less than it otherwise would have been. 



In Woodbury Churchyard, Devonshire, " a yew or palm tree 

 was planted" in November, 1775, as appears by the Register ,t 

 and by the kindness of my venerable friend, the Revd. H. T. 

 Ellacombe, I ascertained that this tree was fifty-five inches in 

 girth last May. It has, therefore, grown much slower than the 

 oldest Clysthydon yew. 



At Sir H. Dryden's, in Northamptonshire, there are some 

 remarkable yews in the Green Court, but their girth cannot be 

 ascertained, and two yews in the front garden, which probably 

 were also planted in 17 10, are about nineteen inches in diameter 

 at four feet from the ground. These yews also have grown much 

 more slowly. 



Having learned much about a great yew in Crowhurst Church- 



* Vol. ii., 460. 



f Notes ami Queries, 3rd Ser. Vol. vii. , 364. 



