130 IJEMAKKABLE YEWS. 



laud for cultivation and the long and continuous demand for the 

 wood for Yew bows and the better kinds of household furniture havt 

 been the most potential. On the chalk downs of Surrey an< 

 Sussex where the Yew occurs wild in considerable numbers, it is 

 sometimes seen solitary forming a conspicuous object from afar ; 

 occasionally it occurs in scattered groups, in places forming small 

 groves unmixed with other trees. 



One of the most remarkable of Yew groves of Nature's own 

 formation occurs on Mickleham Downs near Leatherhead, on tl it- 

 estate of Abraham Dixon, Esq., of Cherkley Court. Ht*re an extensive 

 area is covered with Yews, almost unmixed with other trees and 

 shrubs, except a few Junipers scattered here and there through tin- 

 grove. The aspect of some of these Yews is peculiar and even 

 beautiful. Groups of from rive to a dozen may be seen with 

 their trunks in close proximity to each other, forming a dense 

 copse or clump, and each tree being thickly furnished with branches 

 from the ground on the side freely exposed to the air, the group 

 lias the appearance of being one tree of gigantic dimensions. In 

 one part of the grove a considerable space is completely covered 

 with Yews, all of which, except the outside trees, have lost their 

 lower branches, those remaining on the trees being confined to tin- 

 tops only, and with their foliage forming a dense canopy impervious, 

 to the sun's rays, the interior being lighted only at distant intervals 

 by small openings in the thick foliage. ( hi entering the thicket the 

 aspect is weird and sombre, and when in winter the tops of tin- 

 trees are covered with a thick coating of snow, and the diminished 

 light takes a hazy yellowish line, the appearance of the interior 

 causes an indescribable feeling of depression and gloom. 



In Norbnry Park, not far from Cherkley Court, is another remark- 

 able group of Yews called the Druid's Grove. All the trees are of 

 very great age, the largest measuring from 18 to 22 feet in girth at. 

 a short distance from the ground. There is a famous clump of Yews, 

 at Kingsley Yale, on the South Downs, near Chichester, and another 

 on the North Downs, in a slight hollow of the hill, near Guildford. 

 Numerous great Yews here stand in a natural park or wood opening,, 

 among Hawthorns and several indigenous shrubs, Holly, Furze, Black- 

 thorn and Crab, with .Butcher's Broom beneath. This retired covert, 

 forming part of the primeval forest, is blameless at present of a 

 foreign tree. 



Scarcely surpassed in interest and antiiuiity by any other group in 

 the kingdom are the famous Borrowdale Yews Avhich stand on the 

 left of the mountain track over the Sty Pass to Wastdale. They are 

 the remains of a grove of Yews that were reduced to four, known 

 almost throughout the nineteenth century as the poet Wordsworth's 

 "Fraternal Four," a brotherhood of venerable trees which remained 

 uninjured till one of them was uprooted by the great gale of 

 December, 1883 ; the others were also more or less injured by the 

 breakage of branches. The illustration represents their present aspect 

 and condition. 



Many individual trees have become celebrated either on account 

 of their great age or by reason of their association with historical 



