Visiting the yew at Waverley Abbey

 'No fucking about now', said the Northerner in a stern and northern way as I fastened my seatbelt. 'Just straight there and straight back, ok?' 

But a 340-mile round trip driving one of the offspring back to near Brighton in dreary midwinter's not much fun without at least a bit of a treat. And I don't mean an M&S Wensleydale and carrot chutney sandwich from Chieveley Services either (though they are my preferred fare on long drives). So we made the outward journey shorter, though a little longer timewise, by coming off the M4 at Reading and taking the A33 through the top right-hand corner of Hampshire to Waverley Abbey in Surrey, which has a nice tree. 

I barely know the Home Counties, but as I drove past a turning called Old Compton Lane, this patch at least began to look familiar, and I wondered if I'd been there before. Could we be anywhere near Watts Gallery and Lady Mary's Chapel, not forgetting Guildford Cathedral, which I'd visited with poet friends a considerable number of years ago? And godawfully charming Godalming? It was only when I got home that I could look up the locations, and yes, we were little more than a stone's throw from all of these spots, which is the trouble with letting Google Maps plan your journey, instead of poring over an atlas: the places are more difficult to join up in your memory. 

Anyway. We were on a mission to see the yew tree that won the Woodland Trust's UK Tree of the Year competition in 2022, and if there were a few mediaeval eccelsiastical ruins to take in at the same time, so much better. It had even stopped raining, more or less, and there were plenty of red kites about, which was a bonus. 

Our route to the yew and the ruins took us along the side of a picturesque man-made lake, which, the map later suggested, is fed by the nearby River Wey. The skies were stormy with alternating scuds of rain and sun.

We also passed Waverley Abbey House, for which the moody Abbey ruins, along with the lake, became a landscape feature in its grounds, but which is of much less interest to me. 

So, yes, the first Abbey in the country founded by the Cisterian religious order in 1128, and extant until 1536, when, inevitably, it was trashed on the orders of Henry VIII during the Disillusion of the Monasteries, as my daughter put it. 

The vaulted refectory

A high water marker, set at waist height, and inscribed 16th September 1968, the date of the Great Flood in the south-east

lots of graffiti in the refectory

goose fly-past

the monks' dormitory

The yew tree postdates the dissolution of the monastery, and is believed to be nearly 500 years old. 

Because there are so many more ancient yews than this merely venerable (though very pleasingly-shaped) tree, I wonder if it's the setting that won the competition for the Waverley yew. We know parts of the Abbey were demolished rather than left to fall, as much of its stone was used in other, nearby buildings, so the yew could have been planted, by person or bird, on the razed walls of the Abbey Church shortly afterward its destruction - and given the species' connection with spiritual and religious places, what a powerful symbol its flourishing is. 

The abbey church was huge, by the way: right up to the furthermost walls in this photo.

It strikes me, looking at the list of trees that have won the various Tree of the Year competitions, that triumph is no guarantee of survival. Some of the trees that are nominated are included because they're in danger of being felled and it's a good way of drawing attention to their plight. Of these some still stand, like the Brimmon Oak in Wales - I remember signing a petition to save that one. But the Cubbington Pear, which was England's Tree of the Year in 2015, was felled in 2020 (on my birthday😞) to make way for the HS2 railway line; the Happy Man Tree, which won the same competition in 2020, was felled by developers the following year, and the pain caused by the wanton destruction of the 2016 winner, the Sycamore Gap Tree, last September is still felt by many. 

To which we say, may the lovely Waverley yew stand for thousands of years.  

Three remarkable trees at the turn of the year

I was already sunk in post-electoral despondency, and the news that Iain Duncan Smith, architect of so much suffering, was going to get a knighthood in the New Year honours made me realise that comfort-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, good as it is, wasn't going to salve my soul anytime soon. So I decided to get some perspective by visiting a few aged trees.

It's a bit shaming to admit it had taken me so long to travel no more than a dozen miles to visit the ancient sweet chestnut tree at Tortworth in South Gloucestershire. 

Even so, I delayed our meeting a little longer by popping into the St Leonard's Church, with its elegant but strangely disproportionate tower.

The church has clearly been heavily restored and not a lot of its past remains. 

One of the two Throckmorton tombs in the South Chapel made a useful table for a nativity display.

The font is Norman, 12th century, with a 17th century cover ... 

... and there's some mediaeval glass in the traceries of a couple of windows, some of which depicts King Edward IV and the sun emblem of the House of York. 

The famous Tortworth chestnut is nearby and fenced off, presumably for the health and safety of both visitor and tree.

Written records go back to the 12th century, when the tree was a boundary marker; legend dates it to the reign of King Egbert in 800AD. 

It's difficult to measure its girth as many of its branches have rooted to become trees themselves. In fact, it looks more like woodland than a tree.

It was good to get to see it at last. 

My other two remarkable trees dictated a detour en route to the south coast. The journey was ornamented by seven red kites flying over the motorway. Always a good sign, and the first  yew tree in the churchyard of St Peter's in Tandridge, Surrey, didn't disappoint.

Unsurprisingly, the church was locked  between services. It looked interesting in an Arts and Crafts Movement sort of way and I should like to visit on a non working day some time.

The churchyard had some interesting tombs in it, though, and loads of squirrels floofing about. As for the yew, it's believed to have been struck by lightning in the mid-19th century and was declared to be in a state of rapid and terminal decay around that time ... 

... but here is it, magnificent and thriving. As far as we know, yews are the oldest living entities in Europe and Asia. This one is hollow inside and has three mighty trunks that have grown around the decayed central one that fell, probably, centuries ago. As for its age, no one really knows. Over 1000 years seems a reasonable supposition; possibly even pre-Saxon, the remnant of a Celtic tree cult. 

We didn't see the sign that says not to walk under it until we'd walked under it. (Very respectfully, of course.)

Then it was off to nearby Crowhurst for an even more venerable yew, this one in the churchyard of St George's. Which was open because there was no service being held. 

It was lovely inside, with mosaic and painted frescoes in the Pre-Raphaelite style on the east wall, providing colour and light. 

It also has a 13th century font with mediaeval graffiti ... 

... more graffiti in the porch doorway, as well as deep grooves caused by bowmen sharpening their arrow heads ... 

... and presumably a Christmas gift of beer stashed in the pulpit.

Outside, I spotted this striking headstone from the 1960s with its beautiful wheatsheaves, symbolising both the harvesting of life and resurrection ...

... and we paused to listen to a pair of extremely raucous jays having a right old barney with the magpies and the crows in the meadow over the back. 

But the yew, the yew ... ! 

Here it is, reaching out ... 

...  and thoroughly bewitching.

This is a very very old tree indeed.  In the early nineteenth century it was fitted out as a room with door, table and chairs, during which a cannon ball from the civil war was discovered embedded in its wood. 

A storm struck the tree in 1845 and brought down the 'roof'.

Inside, the growth of new wood on old is simultaneously architectural and grotesque.

 It's almost as if it has grown its own daemons.

As for its age ... the Parish Council claims 4000 years, but they would, wouldn't they? Again, it's impossible to know, but it does seem likely that it's at least in its second millennium.

So how do you end your pilgrimage to three timeless trees that have witnessed so much social history and probably don't care much about the preoccupations of its short-lived protagonists? 

With something that is equally unfathomable, I think.

Rock doves