CROWHURST YEW 219 



decayed above and below, the upper branches dying 

 down while the trunk rots away beneath, the tree 

 meanwhile keeping itself alive and renewing its youth, 

 as it were, by means of that power which the yew 

 possesses of saving portions of its trunk from com- 

 plete decay by covering them inside and out with 

 new bark. 



In the churchyard yew at Crowhurst, Surrey, we 

 see that the upper part of the tree has decayed until 

 nothing but the low trunk, crowned with a poor fringe 

 of late branches, has been left ; in this case the trunk 

 remains outwardly almost entire an empty shell or 

 cylinder, large enough to accommodate fourteen persons 

 on the circular bench placed within the cavity. In 

 other cases we see that the trunk has been eaten 

 through and through, and split up into strips; that 

 the strips, covered inside with new bark, have become 

 separate trunks, in some instances united above, as in 

 that of the yew in South Hayling churchyard. The 

 Farringdon tree has decayed below in this way; long 

 strips from the top to the roots have rotted and turned 

 to dust; and the sound portions, covered in and out 

 with bark, form a group of half-a-dozen flattened boles, 

 placed in a circle, all but one, which springs from the 

 middle, and forms a fantastically twisted column in the 

 centre of the edifice. Between this central strangely 

 shaped bole, now dead, and the surrounding ring there 

 is space for a man to walk round in. 



It is a wonderful tree, which White looked at every 



