COMMON YEW. 



375 



tains' Abbey are also celebrated for their size and age, 

 having been trees of no mean dimensions when the abbey 

 was founded in 1132, as we gather from the tradition 

 handed down, viz., that the monks who built the mon- 

 astery resided beneath the shelter of these very Yews 

 during the time of its erection. One of them is beautifully 

 figured in Strata's " Sylva^ -1 and of their dimensions some 

 idea may be formed from the fact that the trunk of one 

 of them is nearly twenty-seven feet in circumference at 

 three feet from the ground : — the Ankerwyke Yew, sup- 

 posed to be upwards of one thousand years old, within 

 sight of which Magna Charta was signed, and under 

 whose shade Henry the Eighth is said to have made 

 his appointments with Anna Boleyn while she resided 

 at Staines. This tree is also beautifully figured by Strutt, 

 who quotes the following lines : — 



" There, too, the tyrant Henry felt love's flame, 

 And, sighing, breath 'd his Anna Boleyn's name. 

 Beneath the shelter of this Yew tree's shade 

 The royal lover woo'd the ill-starr'd maid. 

 And yet that neck, round which he fondly hung, 

 To hear the thrilling accents of her tongue ; 

 That lovely breast on which his head reclin'd, 

 Form'd to have humaniz'd his savage mind, 

 Were doom'd to bleed beneath the tyrant's steel, 

 Whose selfish heart could doat but could not feel." 



Iii Ifley churchyard, near Oxford, is another very ancient 

 Yew, the trunk of which is now nearly reduced to a shell, 

 but which still carries a flourishing head ; it is supposed 

 to be at least coeval with the church, whose date is be- 

 lieved to be prior to the Norman Conquest. In the church- 

 yard of Dibdin, New Forest, Sir T. D. Lauder mentions 

 a Yew tree which measures above thirty feet in girth 

 above the roots. The Buckland Yew, growing in Buck- 

 land churchyard about a mile from Dover, a description 



