Hi everyone I’ve just been finding out a bit more about Ankerwyke Yew. It’s apparently about 2000 – 2,500 years old, or thereabouts though it’s v hard to tell how old yews are after a certain point because they grow and behave in a very idiosyncratic way, the more so as they get older so the carbon-dating stuff is unreliable.
However I gather the Ankerwyke yew is a mere spring sapling compared to a couple of others, (including one in Scotland which is reputed the oldest living thing in Europe, a mind-boggling 4000 or more years old, in a village named in Gaelic something like ‘place of the sacred grove’ – I bet there’s Scottish druids queueing up to celebrate there) Anyhow the Ankerwyke one is near Windsor, on land owned by the National Trust, which I assume means it’s open to the public. The nearest station is called Wraysbury, though I don’t know how far that is from the actual tree. Fairly near I think. But it might be worth investigating further maybe?
