Country diary: A churchyard yew is a universe in itself

Cromford, Derbyshire: Capable of living over a thousand years, these giants are steeped in life and death, myth and contradictionIn this lovely cliff-enclosed town, St Mary's church is further encircled by a dozen yews which create a dense green palisade around the churchyard. It has also given rise to an inner sphere of gloom about the building, and perhaps it's this that is implicated in the beautiful shape to one yew next to the church.It's a big, multi-stemmed veteran that must have been pruned recently, and the invasion of light has triggered large amounts of growth right along each of its branches from trunk to twig-end. But the new stuff has grown bolt upright and at right angles to the limbs. These old and newer parts remind me of an entire wood of thick dark trunks with an understorey of green twiggy growth, but all emanating from a single organism. Continue reading...