Lytchett Matravers

Two people responded to the David Bellamy yew tree campaign in the Country Living magazine and sent details to the Conservation Foundation in 1988. Each reported two younger yews alongside the main tree. Mrs VE Holland noted the 2nd largest yew with a girth of 13′ 2½” at 3′ and 12′ 2½” at 4′. For the same tree Mrs J.Mellis recorded 13′ 6” at 3′ and 12′ 8” at 4′. This yew was reported by Peter Norton in 2011 as a yew ‘with a gnarled bole that might be the fragmentary remains of a once much larger yew’. He reported a girth of 11′ 10” at 1′. It would seem that some of the yew has been lost between 1988 and 2010.
For the smallest yew of the trio Mrs Holland recorded 10′ 9” at 3′ and 10′ 11½” at 4′ and Mrs Mellis recorded 10′ 5” at 3′ and 11′ 0” at 4′. Both of the reporters sent photographs. The first shows the larger girthed tree, the second the smaller girthed tree.