Yew Trees in the Garden

Yew Tree Cottages Introduction	Landmarks & Roads named after Yew Trees & Yew Tree Cottages	Yew Trees in the Garden The Suburban Yew, Yew Topiary
History of Yew Tree Cottages and their Yews	Yew Tree Farms and Yew Tree Pubs	Conclusion Appendix

As you might imagine, the existence of a Yew Tree Cottage does not guarantee the presence of a yew in its garden. Surprisingly, many ‘Yew Tree Cottages’ appear to have no yews that they are named after; this is particularly noticeable in the New Forest. Nevertheless, in about 4 out of 5 cases, when I’ve visited a Yew Tree Cottage I’ve found a yew, or more than one, nearby.

Bramdean, two Yew Tree Cottages are named after this tree

Upper Swanmore, by the garden gate

Of the yews found at Yew Tree Cottages many were mature trees with large canopies, but their girths rarely exceeded 10'. Whilst a few were clearly old with noticeable rot, I only found two truly ancient yews. One of 18'5'' grows in a garden/hedgerow at Upper Swanmore and the other is a 19'6'' girth tree that has given its name to two properties, No 1 and 2 Yew Tree Cottages, Bramdean.
Clearly searching for ancient yews at Yew Tree Cottages is not going to reveal spectacular results if I’ve visited over a hundred properties and only found 2 genuine ancient trees. But yews can be significant for other reasons than size and age; they can have other characteristics to enjoy.

A suburban yew in the pavement at Lee-on-Solent, all neatly turned out

The Suburban Yew

Searching for mature yew trees in suburbia is an odd experience; like coming across a friend in a city, unexpected, and curiously more rewarding than one expects it to be. A few of such suburban Yew Tree Cottages are old buildings, now surrounded by modern estates, whilst most are more recent buildings which have been built close to older trees that predate them. Both make one wonder about how the locality must have changed during the lifetime of the tree. Sometimes it seems the tree itself is suburbanised; clipped and trimmed to be on its best behaviour.

Yew Topiary

King Somborne, Yew Tree House with a ‘7 ringed yew’

One of the most charming discoveries I found during my site visits was that Yew Tree Cottages would sometimes contain interesting examples of topiary in their garden. Indeed, since England is a nation of gardeners, I generally found that owners with yews in their garden were usually delighted to talk to me about their garden and their trees. Some have good reason to be proud of their topiary.
Sadly, at King Somborne, another such 7 ringed yew used to exist nearby at a Yew Tree Cottage but I was told its owners felled it in 1979. Why? Because surveyors found that the roots were coming up in the back garden and might be interfering with the foundations of the cottage. Yet it is a 16th Century cottage – which had survived well enough until 1979. A plague on building surveyors for blaming all such ills on trees.

Yew Tree Cottages Introduction	Landmarks & Roads named after Yew Trees & Yew Tree Cottages	Yew Trees in the Garden The Suburban Yew, Yew Topiary
History of Yew Tree Cottages and their Yews	Yew Tree Farms and Yew Tree Pubs	Conclusion Appendix

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