Llanddewi Fach

1822 Jacob George Strutt: ‘The yew measures 30 feet 4 ins at 3 feet from the ground, a hollow trunk with inner trunk inside.’
1881 Selby’s Forest Trees, we are told, recorded a male yew, 31 feet in girth with an inner trunk 9 feet in girth.
1895 John Lowe in The Yew-Trees of Great Britain and Ireland: On p85 the location is called Llanthewy Bach and the tree is described as having a trunk covered with spray (Rev.W.A.W.Evans). Evans also gave the following girths of 31′ at the ground, 32′ 5” at 3′ and a 5′ bole length.
On page 228 is the following description taken from Strutt’s Sylva Brit. in 1822: ‘It has in the centre a still more remarkable inner trunk, covered with bark, quite detached and distinct from the old trunk below, but united to it above by a great branch running into, or more probably proceeding from it.’ Lowe continues: ‘The inner trunk is, no doubt, like that in the Portbury and Dinder trees, the result of a root sent down from the crown through the decayed wood in the centre.
Allen Meredith has reported that in 1930 there were ‘a few live branches remaining’ and that in 1975 it was ‘just alive’.