2O2 Yew- Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



copied by Evelyn 1 in his Sylva, 1664 ; Humboldt, 2 

 Aubrey, De Candolle, 3 Manning, 4 and others. 

 Selby's measurement is an error, and obviously 

 refers to the Sussex tree. 



Mr. Gill in a letter to the Times gives an account 

 of this tree, and mentions that a cannon ball was 

 found in its interior in 1820, and is supposed to 

 have been there since the Civil War, and to have 

 been gradually enclosed by the growth of the tree. 

 This may well have been, when it is seen how the 

 new tissues have spread over the cut ends of the 

 dead branches. ' Crowhurst,' says Mr. Gill, ' is a 

 very interesting little parish. There is a farmhouse, 

 surrounded by a moat, held by tradition to have 

 been the temporary abode of Henry vm. when he 

 was on his way to Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle/ 



Crowhurst, near Battle, Sussex. The large tree 

 growing in the churchyard, on the south side, is 

 said by Evelyn to have had a diameter of 10 feet. 



Mr. M. A. Lower 5 observes that 'it is said to 

 be 3000 years old.' I might say with Mr. Jennings, 

 ' I will believe almost anything of a yew-tree, but 

 not quite that' Lower gives 33 feet as the cir- 

 cumference of the tree in 1870, and it is therefore 

 probable that there was a large amount of young 

 spray round the trunk at the time of measurement ; 

 otherwise the tree never could have measured 



1 Sylva. 2 Aspects of Nature. 3 Nat. Hist, and Antiq. of Surrey. 



4 Field Paths and Green Lanes, p. 38. 5 History of Sussex, chap. xiv. 



