Grasmere

Nearest town: Ambleside

Site type: churchyard

Access: Public

Church name: St Oswald

Diocese: Carlisle

County: Cumbria

Country: England

Grid ref: NY33750738

Lost yew site: No

Date visited: 25-Mar-14

Recorded by: Tim Hills

Protection & responsibility: Parochial Church Council

Yews recorded at this site: Notable

Notes: According to the Fenwick Notes, the planting of yews in this churchyard was overseen by William Wordsworth in 1819. They were originally planted in enclosures as four pairs 'with the intention of leaving the one which throve best to stand'. All eight grew so well that at a later time four new enclosures were made. Wordsworth requested 'May the trees be taken care of hereafter when we are all gone and some of them will perhaps at some far distant time rival in majesty the Yew of Lorton and those which I have described as growing in Borrowdale where they are still to be seen in grand assemblage'. If these are Wordsworth's eight trees they have grown remarkably quickly, having an average girth of about 12'. At Townend, only a few miles away a group of yews planted 100 years earlier than these - in 1736 - have an average girth of only 8' 6''.