THE DARLEY YEW. 1 09 



The body and chancel of the church were re-built within the last 

 30 years, and it occurred to me that funerals might have been 

 taken in through the old chancel; but upon enquiry, Mr. Papillon, 

 the present proprietor of Crowhurst Park, has been good enough 

 to inform me that the present chancel was built on the old 

 foundations of the former chancel, and that, if there was a door 

 into the old chancel, he feels sure a corpse was never taken into 

 the church through it. 



There are three other yews in the churchyard — one at the west 

 end, another at the north-west corner, and the third at the north- 

 east corner. The last is a very vigorous tree, with a very bushy 

 head, and has not reached its best. The others are past their 

 best, but their boles are still sound. The one at the north-west 

 corner is thirteen feet five inches in girth. 



No other yews have been discovered with which any fair 

 comparison could be made ; but the Darley Hall and Carsington 

 yews, when due allowance has been made for the matters that 

 have been pointed out, fully confirm the conclusion drawn from 

 the Clysthydon yews. 



As every tree naturally increases more or less in every year, 

 there is a means of testing the age of a tree which, although it 

 may never afford more than a proximate result, will exclude 

 extreme estimates. It has been said that the Darley yew is 2,000 

 years old, or even more. As it is ten feet in diameter, on that 

 supposition it could only have grown one foot in diameter in 200 

 years, or one inch in sixteen years, and its annual ring would have 

 been less than the thirty-second part of an inch in breadth, which 

 would scarcely be visible. It is out of the question for any 

 vigorous tree to have increased so slowly ; and the fact that the 

 oldest Clysthydon yew has increased four times as fast (2 ft. 6 in. 

 in 1 20 years), is ample proof that that conclusion is right. Even 

 if the Darley yew were supposed to be 1,000 years old, its yearly 

 ring would be less than the sixteenth part of an inch in thickness, 

 which is much too little for so vigorously growing a tree. 



But, on the other hand, if we suppose the age to be 600 years, 

 a more reasonable state of things will be found. In that case the 



