Io8 THE DARLEY YEW. 



yard, some five miles from Hastings and two from Battle Abbey, 

 I visited the place on October 4, 1879. The tree is a very 

 remarkable one. It is completely hollow in the bole, which has a 

 large opening into it on the west, and a still larger one on the 

 south. The branches have separated at about eight feet from the 

 ground, and probably wet may have got into a crack, and caused 

 the decay of the inside, for a large limb on the south-east side of 

 the opening on the south has plainly separated from the other 

 part of the bole, and the part of the bole from which it issues 

 protrudes beyond the space it originally occupied. Although the 

 statements of its girth, which vary from 27 to 40 feet, are all in 

 excess, the girth is exactly twenty-six feet and seven inches at four 

 feet from the ground on the north side ; but this is something in 

 excess of the true girth, on account of the protrusion above 

 mentioned, and the great irregularity in the exterior of the bole, 

 which, as I approached the tree, led me to suppose the bole 

 consisted of several trunks united. My measure was made by a 

 string passed round the tree twice in order to secure accuracy. 

 The head of the tree exhibits great signs of age. There is much 

 dead wood in it, and it obviously extends much less in height and 

 in every direction than it formerly did. It is quite out of the 

 question to form any opinion as to the age of the tree from itself, 

 and no mention of it is known to exist in any ancient document. 



The position in which it stands is very remarkable. The 

 entrance to the churchyard ascends rapidly from the south-east 

 corner to the level on which the church stands, and just at the 

 top of this ascent, and close to the left of the path, and imme- 

 diately opposite the present chancel door, the yew stands. It is 

 exactly in the spot at which the bearers of a coffin would rest when 

 they had reached the top of the ascent. Again, the ground slopes 

 very fast towards the south where the tree stands, and there is at 

 least a foot and a half difference between the north and south 

 sides of the tree, and as the sub-soil is sand rock, the soil cannot 

 have fallen or slidden away since the yew was planted. It, 

 therefore, must have been planted on the slope, and there must 

 have been some reason for that course. 



