78 
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES. 
closely and continuously the Yew could be clipped without 
affecting its vitality, and the fashion he thus set — and regarded as 
a “ merit ” — was very generally followed during the next century. 
Many of the atrocities of those days are still with us, but only as 
survivals ; and we can so often agree with Evelyn that we may 
forgive him for having led our ancestors astray in this matter. 
Evelyn was by no means blind to the good points of the tree in 
its natural condition, as witness this quotation, which is as true 
to-day as when it was written : — 
“ He that in winter should behold some of our highest hills in 
Surry clad with whole woods of these two last sorts of trees [Box 
and Yew], for divers miles in circuit (as in those delicious groves 
of them, belonging to the Honourable, my Noble Friend, the late 
Sir Adam Brown, of Bechworth Castle), from Box Hill, might, 
without the least violence to his imagination, easily fancy himself 
transported into some new or enchanted country ; for if in any 
spot in England, 
’tis here 
Eternal spring and summer all the year/’ 
Along the chalk range of which the celebrated Box Hill forms 
part will be found many fine examples of the Yew, as at Cherkley 
Court, near Leatherhead, where there is an actual Yew forest. 
There was a monstrous Yew at Brabourne in Kent, in Evelyn’s 
time, for he tells us he measured it, and found its girth to be only 
one inch short of fifty-nine feet. There are numerous giants of 
the species still living in quiet country churchyards, where they 
have probably served — as tradition states of those at Fountains 
Abbey — as a shelter for the builders of the ancient church during 
its erection. It is reputed to be the longest-lived of all trees, 
and it is to be hoped that no hindrance will be put in the way of 
these connections of the present with the far past living to their 
full natural limit, whatever it may be. It is naturally a tree of the 
uplands and lower hills, and shows a distinct preference for soils 
that contain plenty of lime. 
