Yew Tree Cottages
Yew Tree Cottage, Broughton, Hampshire
Introduction
This is a work in progress. It began in May 2006 with a plan
to locate and visit local place and house names in a single English
county that feature yews, which might then indicate whether a
wider study would be rewarding.
It has not proved easy to find and investigate local place names
with any scientific certainty. Place names are by their very nature
idiosyncratic; they have been adopted haphazardly from of a variety
of stimuli acting upon a host of people across many centuries.
And, of course, this process continues still. Furthermore records
are not conveniently accessible. House names in particular seem
not to have attracted serious study. So I’ve spent a long
time poring over maps and on computer searches to find yew landmarks
and yew named properties. I have now traced over a hundred yew
named properties and sites and have visited more than half of
them. Conclusions are emerging, which the convenience of easily
updating computer databases means that they can be fine-tuned
as still more information is obtained. So whilst my site visits
continue, now seems as good a time as any for this study to be
placed on the Ancient Yew Group’s website.
Background
Place names can be fascinating signposts to past events or to
historic landmarks – but how much do local references to
yew trees in place names actually reflect the existence of major
yews?
This is a simple question to ask but not exactly easy to answer.
What I had read in Robert Bevan-Jones’s “The Ancient
Yew” (Windgather 2002) had alerted me to the possibility
that 200 yew tree cottages might exist in England and some may
be centuries old. With this thought already in my mind, I came
across a Yew Tree Cottage near to where I live in Hampshire which
contained a large veteran yew in its garden. It was then that
the idea occurred it might be worthwhile searching to see how
many other old yews were growing in Yew Tree Cottages in Hampshire.
I had hoped that there might be unrecorded huge yews just waiting
to be discovered, however, it wasn’t long before I realised
that such expectations were rather unrealistic. As what I began
to discover about place names were different results to what I
was expecting. Much like most searches really; what you often
find turns out to be something you weren’t looking for.
But my search started well, I traced more place name references,
especially of Yew Tree Cottages, than hitherto I had suspected.
Yet upon actual visits these names and their locations were not
so revealing of ancient yews. Nevertheless a range of smaller
scale discoveries were revealed; which have been very pleasurable
to uncover. Let me explain further…
The Scope of the Search
I began quite simply; I wanted to check for the occurrence of
yews in town names, road names and as names for houses, pubs,
farms and local landmarks such as hills and heaths. My self-imposed
limit was to seek yew place names throughout Hampshire, in which
I know yews are frequent and locally common. Firstly, I searched
for villages or towns on maps, whilst road names were looked up
on street atlases. This I hoped would give me quick results and
might indicate the existence of prominent yews in the urban scene
as well as in the rural landscape.
Road sign on approach to Ewshot, but sadly not a yew to behold
Of towns or villages only 2 yew sounding villages exist in Hants.
Ewshot and Ewhurst are the 2 locations concerned and their names
sound impressively old. Both locations are in the north of the
county and both settlements are small. Ewhurst is scarcely a hamlet,
more an estate with a park dating to the Georgian era. Sadly,
a site visit there revealed no large yews in the neighbourhood.
Ewshot, near Farnham cannot be termed a village. It mainly consists
of a series of modern, affluent properties in a woodland setting
with a small Victorian church and pub - yet with no sight of any
prominent yews in its vicinity. Not a very satisfying introduction
to my project.
|
