6o Vezv- Trees of G^^eat Britain and Ireland 



measuring lo feet 4 inches at 3 feet from the 

 ground, A note says : ' Old buildings taken down 

 lately near the site of trees were of eleventh 

 century.' This tree is less in girth than that at 

 Pitmedden, known to be planted in 1675. The age 

 of the buildings, therefore, is no guide to that of 

 the tree. 



'Tradition,' says Mr. Farrer,^ 'would seem to 

 contain nothing- incredible when it asserts that the 

 yews on Kinglye Bottom, near Chichester, were 

 on their present site when the sea-kings from the 

 North landed on the coast of Sussex.' Had he 

 said that ' yews were there ' the statement would 

 have been accurate, but that 'the yews,' meaning 

 those still existing, were then in being, is too large 

 a demand on our credulity, as there is no tree at 

 that place which exceeds 15*4 in girth, or possibly 

 about five hundred years in age. 



Tradition is aoain at fault in the case of a tree 

 at Yew Park, Clontarf, Co. Dublin, where there is a 

 fine specimen, 1 2 feet in girth, of which the owner, 

 H. Brougham Leech, Esq., LL.D., writes: 'It is 

 not surrounded by young shoots ; it presents the 

 appearance of a tree in the midst of a small planta- 

 tion.' (The dense shade thus produced sufficiently 

 explains the absence of shoots on the trunk.) ' The 

 branches project horizontally, and touch the ground, 

 and then, without taking root, strike upwards again. 



^ Longman^ s Magazine, 1883. 



