This article was first published by
John William Parker, West Strand in The Saturday Magazine on
February 4th 1837. It was made available by Christian Wolf.
ANCIENT YEW TREE
DESTROYED BY THE HURRICANE IN NOVEMBER
1836.
There are few objects of nature presenting more real interest to
the mind, or richer points of beauty to the eye, than a noble aged
tree; and at times these glories of the forest become associated, either
from intrinsic character or local situation, with our best and purest
feelings.
The wonder and beauty of trees is, however, much overlooked. We admire
the vast superstructures which man may rear, and, when the temple or
the palace may be overthrown, we note and deplore their fall; but those
stately sylvan structures which the Almighty architect has reared around
our footsteps, and so lavishly adorned, are but little regarded, and
their massive trunks fall to the ground, as unheeded as the autumnal
leaves from their boughs.
Circumstances sometimes rescue from this oblivion a sylvan hero of
marked character, and the venerable tree represented in the annexed
engraving, has points of interest connected with it claiming this distinction.
It is a celebrated yew which has for ages adorned the church-yard
of Dibden, a parish in the purlieu of New Forest, Hampshire. During
the severe gale on Tuesday, the 30th of November, 1836, the larger
portion of its time-shivered trunk was uprooted, and fell to the ground;
and an object whose picturesque grandeur had long excited the admiration
of strangers, and had been associated with many a solemn feeling of
the rustic inhabitants, is now, like many of their generations it has
seen lowered to the grave, no more seen. Its age is unknown, but evidently
it had withstood the storms and tempests of many centuries, and, as
one of the venerable fathers of the forest, should not be allowed to
pass away unnoticed.
In the interesting work of Gilpin, On Forest Scenery, published
in 1694, four extraordinary trees are recorded as particularly worthy
of notice, within the district of the New Forest, and this now prostrated
Yew is one of them. It is thus mentioned:-
Another tree worth pointing out in New Forest, is an immense Yew,
which stands in the church-yard at Dibden. It is now, and probably
has been during the course of the last century, in the decline of life;
but its hollow trunk still supports three vast stems, and measures
below them about thirty feet in circumference, a girth which, perhaps,
no other Yew-tree in England can exhibit. Though its age cannot be
ascertained, we may easily suppose it has been a living witness of
the funerals of at least a dozen generations of the inhabitants of
the parish.
But if thus claiming to be specially recorded merely from its picturesque
and ancient character, the local situation which it occupied amidst
the hallowed precincts of the grave, invests it with high additional
interest. It stood casting its full and sombre shadows over the scene
of sorrow and decay, silently preaching lessons of comfort and immortal
hope. Race after race might view, in this ever-living witness of the
departure of their friends, a connecting link uniting together sire
and son, from by-gone to long-coming generations; ---and while frailty
and oblivion seemed marked upon all that transpired around it, the
bright deep green of its undecaying foliage, admonished of a state
where no death, no sorrow, can ever come.
This venerable tree had, beyond the memory of any living person,
become split down the centre of the trunk, and being thus divided into
two parts, it had latterly almost appeared like two distinct trees;
the weight of the upper branches had gradually widened the fissure,
and at the time of its fall, the intervening space was at the base
two feet, and at almost two yards from the ground, five feet; but persons
now living, remember when, as children, the opening was not sufficiently
wide to admit them to creep between the two portions of the trunk. A
circumstance which strongly marks the great distance of time when this
fissure took place, is presented in the singularly large stems of ivy
which had grown up against the interior portions of the trunk. One
of these ivy stems measures two feet in circumference at the base,
and after ascending seven feet, this gigantic parasite sends out fantastic
limbs, which, entwining around its antique supporter, had in many parts
entirely overshadowed its decaying branches. It appears, however,
that the support thus obtained has been amply repaid, as upon the fall
of the tree, it was discovered, that the still vigorous roots of the
ivy had been the only stay that had prevented the overthrow of the
Yew many years since, all the larger roots of the latter being quite
decayed.
This tree measured at the base, taking the exterior circle of the
two divisions of the trunk, twenty-five feet, and at three yards from
the ground, thirty feet. Its height was forty-one feet, and some
of its branches spread out to a wide extent. It has carried to the
ground with it many a tombstone reared beneath its branches, it having
been a favourite selected spot.
…………that
yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Gray – Elegy written in a country churchyard
J.G. |
