HAMPSHIRE YEWS 43 



Like the Boarhunt tree, it is completely hollow, and the 

 bole measures in circumference no less than 23 feet 

 4 inches. In these instances the yew-trees are probably 

 older than the churches by the side of which they 

 flourish, and were doubtless regarded with veneration 

 before the Christian edifice gave them an additional 

 sanctity. 



Among the finest yews in Hampshire must un- 

 doubtedly be included the classic tree in Selborne 

 churchyard. Gilbert White, in one of his Letters, thus 

 speaks of it : "In the churchyard of this village is a 

 yew-tree, whose aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age ; 

 it seems to have seen several centuries, and is probably 

 coeval with the church, and therefore may be deemed 

 an antiquity ; the body is squat, short, and thick, and 

 measures (upwards of) twenty-three feet in the girth, 

 supporting a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This 

 is a male tree which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, 

 and fills the atmosphere with its farina." Much in- 

 terest has, not unnaturally, been taken in the Selborne 

 yew-tree, and it has been visited by many naturalists. 

 Thirty years after White's death William Cobbett, on one 

 of his " Rural Rides," passed through Selborne, when, 

 under date "Thursday, 7th August, 1823," he writes: 

 " I measured the yew-tree in the churchyard, and found 

 the trunk to be, according to my measurement, twenty- 

 three feet eight inches in circumference. The whole 

 tree," he adds, " appears to be in perfect health." In 

 the year 1844, Dr Bell Salter, a distinguished botanist, 

 made the measurement to be 24 feet 8 inches, but men- 

 tions that the vicar of the parish informed him that " at 

 one part it measured twenty-seven feet." I myself 

 measured the famous tree a few years back, and found 



