Portchester

2008 – Ian Robert Brown: The Yew Tree is reputed to have been bought and planted by the French prisoners held here during the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century. 1816 is given as a possible planting date and it is supposed to have cost the prisoners what was then the considerable sum of one shilling and three pence. There are reports that the yew replaced an older specimen that stood on the same spot. One suggestion is that the previous yew was ‘felled for firewood’, another that it was ‘destroyed by the fumes of their kitchen fires’. If this information can be verified it might provide useful information of growth rates in this area. The fine looking tree is in excellent health.
February 2013 – Peter Norton: Two yews grow here. The largest grows close to the church’s north west corner. A girth of 13′ 4” (406cm) at the root crown was recorded. The second tree growing south of the church is male with a girth of 10′ 2” at 2′.