The Potential for the Borrowdale Valley in Cumbria to Possess Some of the Slowest Growing Yew Trees in the World

Paul Greenwood

Evidence has shown that yew trees can be one of the slowest growing woody plants on earth, depending on habitat. It is assumed that the oldest yews are those with the biggest girth of trunk and are usually found in churchyards. However, that may well not be the case and in fact small yews in inaccessible upland micro habitats in the UK may contain the oldest specimens of all> This draft paper gives evidence to support that hypothesis, including physical evidence that yews in upland environments can create an annual ring increment as small as a single cell in thickness.

The Potential for the Borrowdale Valley in Cumbria to Possess Some of the Slowest Growing Yew Trees in the World By Paul W. Greenwood Draft Version 1.7 January 2015. Figure 1: Looking down from, through and up at yew trees on the ancient mountains surrounding the Borrowdale valley. CONTENTS Introduction Part One: Re-evaluation and Revelation? Part Two: The Trees of Eden Part Three: The King and the Castle Part Four: In Search of Sensational Survivors Part Five: At the Very Limits of Life Part Six: The Trees in the Clouds Part Seven: From River Deep to Mountain High Reference Sources 1 Introduction The first contact I had with yew trees was in 1991 high on the western slopes of King’s Howe, a peak on Grange Fell, a small mountain which overlooks the central Borrowdale from the east. Grange Fell consists of three peaks: Ether Knott at an altitude of 1375 ft. (419 m.), Brund Fell 1363 ft. (415 m.) and King’s Howe, which at 1286 ft. (392 m.) although the smallest of the three, commands the best viewpoints. During the descent from the peak of King’s Howe, a rather small evergreen tree caught my photographer’s eye which looked like a typical conifer but was unknown to me, unlike say a spruce or Scot’s Pine. This was because it had bright red ‘berries’ on it instead of seed cones and also the unripe, developing fruit looked for all the world like little green oak acorns. To me it looked like the ubiquitous ‘Christmas Tree’ traditionally decorated with red globes, but that comparison was somewhat out of place - as this was on a glorious late summer day. When I checked the tree’s identity back at home, I discovered it was a yew, at that time referred to as the Common or English Yew, Taxus baccata l., but now better known as the European Yew. This started a journey of investigation into yew trees which, from day one, has been anything but common or ordinary. As I discovered, both from various perspectives including scientific, cultural and spiritual and based on a mountain of empirical evidence, there is a case to suggest that the yew is actually the most uncommon (i.e. extraordinary) tree possibly Britain, and perhaps the world, has ever known. My first enquiries into yew trees inevitably led to the maxim that ancient yews were found in churchyards mainly in southern England and Wales, their primary British habitat. At that point in 1991-92, yew historian Allen Meredith’s original gazetteer of ancient yews (later published as an appendix in The Sacred Yew) numbered just over 400 sites, of which only 4 (a single per cent) were in northern England and Scotland. Also, by the sizes of the girths (the circumference of a tree’s trunk) of the recorded trees, it implied that the bigger the yew’s girth the older the tree - surely a maxim applicable to all other trees and a reasonable assumption to make. Furthermore, there appeared to be no reason to doubt this at the time. So, based on this orthodoxy and correspondence with Allen Meredith, these small yews on King’s Howe appeared to be young yew trees, the biggest perhaps 400 years old, but the majority perhaps up to 200 years. If so, these yews were probably recent regeneration, after the industrialisation of Borrowdale from the mid sixteenth century onwards saw massive deforestation due primarily to mining needing timber for smelting. Regeneration due to a past and sudden decrease in predation of yew seedlings by animals, such as sheep or deer known to browse upon them, is unlikely as a reason for any sudden surge in recruitment over the past 400 years, as these animals have inhabited Borrowdale, particularly the current breed of sheep, in considerable numbers for well over 1000 years. 2 I also consulted yew specialist Robert Bevan-Jones and sent him some photographs and, in his opinion, either these yews were what they appeared to be on paper based on size, and were therefore yews of a few centuries old in regenerating woodland or, if not, they could well be ‘exceptional specimens’. Figure 2: Small but dense groves of yew in Borrowdale on the slopes of King’s Howe and Grange Fell. In the summer of 1992, I was on the opposite side of the valley from King’s Howe having identified more yews growing at a similar altitude over 1000 ft. (350 m. approx.) on the craggy slopes of Low Scawdel. This site overlooks the summit of Castle Crag, a precipitous volcanic peak commanding central Borrowdale which now stands 951ft. (290 m.) high today, though not as high as it once was, as the summit has been subjected to quarrying. I photographed these trees and sent them for analysis from Allen Meredith in case they were noteworthy. When the book The Sacred Yew by Anand Chetan and Diana Brueton featuring his work was published in 1994, I got a nice surprise that one of the images had been included on p. 165. Figure 3: Left: The exposed, barren rocky habitat surrounding this solitary yew on Low Scawdel, marked by the ‘O’, should speak for itself. The two landscape views left and centre are looking north to Derwentwater and the Skiddaw – Blencathra (Saddleback) range. The telephoto image on the right is the one reproduced in The Sacred Yew. 3 Taken with a telephoto lens looking down the steep rocky slope, the image of this solitary wind-sculpted yew in Fig. 3 was unfortunately miscaptioned as being one of the now famous Borrowdale Yews. At the time though, based on perceived size and appearance (as I did not go and measure it on the day the photograph was taken) this ‘small’ yew was not thought to be exceptional or ancient. Note in Fig. 3 how the tree has been shaped by the prevailing weather blowing from the south and how canopy growth parallels the incline of the slope – a feature of yew growth in other habitats in Borrowdale we shall explore later. Coupled with the general response that these small yews were not ancient yews (at the time the benchmark for an ancient yew was generally accepted as 1000 years) my investigations turned to yews elsewhere in Borrowdale. Mostly this involved the grove of the Borrowdale Yews, and for the next few years when the opportunities arose to make any visits to Borrowdale they, and others I discovered (and all in more accessible locations than King’s Howe or Low Scawdel) commanded my attention. However, the presence of these upland yews, particularly the yew in Fig. 3, and the faint possibility that some could be older than they look assessed on size alone, continued to deeply intrigue me, so I continued to explore the potential that there could be more to them than just their size suggested. 4 Part One: Re-evaluation… and Revelation? It was not until 1999 that I re-visited, measured and photographed the yew in Fig. 3 and closer inspection showed it was a hollow female with a girth of around 9 ft. (275 cm), see Fig. 4 below. Figure 4: Detail of the southern portion of the trunk of the yew in Fig. 3 above showing ancient exposed sapwood, an indicator of a very old yew. Referring images once again to Allen Meredith, this time his response was very different to his previous opinion. To him this small yew looked like it was ancient tree, possibly very old indeed and, if so, perhaps even older than the suspected age of the much bigger trees at the grove of Borrowdale Yews - which at that time was thought by him to potentially be over two thousand years! * 5 * Investigations since by Dr Andy Moir, the UK’s pioneering yew dendrochronologist and Toby Hindson of the Ancient Yew Group undertaken between 2004 and 2012 have revealed a very intriguing common date of origin for the Borrowdale Yews around 1500 years ago. Furthermore, in Allen Meredith’s opinion he thought that this tree could be a stem from a root system existing upon the slopes which could itself be vastly old, perhaps even aboriginal, a remnant of the original post glacial wildwood of Britain. In his words he had ‘never seen the like’ of this before and it opened up ‘a whole new area of yew research’. This was especially exciting to me personally because at that point the majority of attention in yew research was estimating the ages of yews based on girth size mainly from yews investigated in churchyard habitats in southern Britain. This therefore was indeed a ‘new area of research’ and I felt that whilst my research at that time concentrated on finding more potential yew sites, and churchyards and other ecclesiastical sites were such obvious places to look, it began to strike me that the growth rates of many yews in churchyards could be unnaturally influenced either by high nutrient and light availability or shade and shelter from the elements. It follows then that at that time basing estimates based on girth size alone and from many sites which were in non-natural habitats may have led to a serious flaw, and that yews in wholly natural ancient environments (as can best be classified today) may be being seriously overlooked simply because they were not yews with large girths. Needless to say I was rather taken aback at Allen Meredith’s opinion because it went against the prevalent paradigm at that time of estimating yew age by girth size: i.e. a yew with ‘only’ a 9 ft. (2.75 m.) girth ‘should’ be no more than300 - 400 years old, and that a maximum limit. Yet here was a hollowed tree, with ancient weathered sapwood, and looking like it ‘should’ be ‘1000 years old’, but is only around 30 per cent of the girth size of a ‘typical’ hollow ancient yew in a churchyard estimated to have a probable four-figure lifespan. So this confusing conundrum - in fact an exciting revelation - meant more investigation was inevitable. It urged me to look for scientific evidence rather than, with respect, one man’s instinctual conjecture, which would support not only this yew, but also others in upland Borrowdale, potentially being 1000 years old or more - despite not looking the part based on size and a few photographs, which meant only a visual examination by experts was possible. It also meant that, when considered further, if there were ancient upland yews in Borrowdale, the potential for other yews existing as groves or solitaries in inaccessible, steep or mountainside environments throughout Britain was self-evident. There could be thousands of ancient yews outside churchyards, parks, gardens and estates etc. overlooked because of their relatively small sizes and remote or difficult to access locations.* * For more information regarding this potential please see my article at the following link: http://www.ancient-yew.org/mi.php/ancient-yew-in-upland-and-cliff-habitats-in-the-uk-newresearch/69 6 Part Two: The Trees of Eden My research led to a rare and exciting yew habitat at Castle Eden dene, Co. Durham in north east England which, despite its uniqueness, receives scarce national recognition. This is a steep valley about 2 miles (3.5 km approx.) long and was managed at the time by the National Trust and now by Natural England. Geologically it consists of Magnesian limestone, topped with a mixture of boulder clay and glacial moraine, and was scoured out by ferocious meltwaters draining from the Pennines in the final stages of the Ice Age around 12,000 years ago, creating what is in places a sheer gorge, and the mouth of the valley actually runs directly onto Co. Durham’s North Sea coastline. The Eden element in the place originates from the Anglo-Saxon name Yoden/Eoden, the first syllable derived from eo, an ancient Saxon name for the yew (also found in Ireland), and den meaning a valley with a small river or stream, giving the modern English word ‘dene’. Hence Yoden/Eden means the ‘yew-valley’. This was immediately intriguing because it implied that when the Anglo-Saxon tongue replaced a native British name for this this valley it was clearly notable for its population of yew trees to have been given such an Anglo-Saxon name. Moreover, it is more than likely that the valley was known by an equivalent native British name before the Anglo/Saxon immigration and conquest of the region titled it anew. The Anglo-Saxon language became rooted in the area well over 1000 years ago, so: could it be possible there were yews in this valley which had seen the first Anglo-Saxons arrive as conquerors, and the same trees were still there? Could there even be trees which saw the Romans arrive in the area just under 2,000 years ago? Prior to a visit with Andy McGeeney, a co-founder member of the Ancient Yew Group, in 1999, further research about the location had already revealed some startling information. In a book The Wild Woods: A Regional Guide to Britain’s Ancient Woodland by Peter Marren (Nature Conservancy Council 1992) a particularly descriptive phrase leapt out at me concerning the fact that upon the steep hangers above the ravine were parts of woodland, including yews, ‘untouched by Man or animal’ since the last Ice Age. In effect a cliff-face environment. As the Natural England website states (December 2013): “Enter a world where magical yew, oak, ash and dying elm create a home for other plants and creatures. 10,000 years of wild growth in a deep gorge has created a place you can explore again and again…….. This mysterious tangled landscape of trees, rocky outcrops and steep cliffs is a sensational survivor of ‘the wildwood’ that once covered much of Britain.” Italics added. 7 So here was a yew habitat 10,000 years old and a remnant of the post-glacial wildwood of Britain and in fragments untouched by Man or animal for that immense timespan. Could the same possibly exist in Borrowdale? Could there be remnants of the original yew wildwood population of Britain there too? Could there be some ‘sensational survivors’? Could some of the oldest yew trees in Britain not be the ones with the largest girths and, furthermore, were not in churchyards? These were all reasonable, intriguing and exciting questions and, especially so, because some positive answers could potentially extend the envelope of ancient yew habitats in Britain (and other European countries) and, in the process, discover hundreds more relevant sites in the uplands and the steep terrain of cliffs, escarpments and river gorges which exist throughout the UK and Europe. Figure 5: Left: small yews on the steep hangers above the dene. Centre: a yew with an exposed root system below the crest of the dene. Right: down in the lowest parts of the dene by the river Eden. My first impressions of Castle Eden dene were rather disappointing due to my own expectations, as I was looking forward to seeing many ancient yews grown huge with age over thousands of years, but there were no massive trees - for example there was nothing comparable in size to the girths of the trio of Borrowdale Yews, i.e. at least around 20 ft. (6 m. approx.) girth. But this disappointing impression soon changed heading eastwards into the dene as it became a steep ravine and the atmosphere of the place changed. Sure enough, on the edges of the sheer cliffs consisting of yellow coloured boulder clay, some small, bushy yews were perched rather precariously on these ‘hangers’ growing over the lip of the ravine, as seen in Fig. 5 (left) above. These were the most obviously inaccessible locations and have remained undisturbed the most since Britain’s post-glacial wildwood was established. 8 As the valley became deeper more of the mixed woodland became of yew, and there was a distinctive change in mood and presence as, indeed, it became a more ‘tangled and mysterious landscape’. As seen in the centre image in Fig. 5 above, despite not being a large yew and nothing on paper to suggest this yew is ancient, nonetheless its spiralling and convoluted form has a timeless mesmerising beauty. This image also demonstrates how the yews here hold the earth in place as best they can against erosion. But, perhaps most of all, this image clearly shows one of the greatest conundrums about yew trees: where do their roots end and their trunks begin? Higher levels of humidity upon reaching the lowest levels of the dene meant that mosses, lichens, ferns and glossy leaved plants grow in abundance, colouring the trunks of yew with shades of both deep and pastel greens. Compared to life for a yew up above on the edge of the dene, or just below it, this was a different world entirely, and it simply ‘felt’ very, very ancient and primeval – a ‘Jurassic Park’ of British woodland – as seen in Fig. 5 (right) which shows a yew of approximately 8 ft. (2.45 m.) girth living in these very damp and rather dim conditions. It was also very apparent, from the debris of yew trunks and branches in the lowest parts of the woodland that yews seemingly fall in parts from the steep cliffs, as there was no evidence of entire yew trees, i.e. whole root systems as well as trunks and branches having toppled this way. This implied that there could be an ancient and intact root system at the top of the cliffs, at the original level of the yew woodland before being eroded to where it is today, and what has been lost to erosion are stems of yew growth, not whole individual trees, roots and all. In other words these yew remnants could be the result of thousands of years of yews ‘layering’ new stems from an original woodland rootstock which evidence clearly suggests could indeed still be there. Figure 6: Left: Remnants of what look like part of a yew root system in Castle Eden dene. Right: Carcass of the stem of a yew lying prone on the slopes of the valley’s densest yew woodland. The precariousness of the habitat should speak for itself. 9 It was also obvious from the density and height of the mixed woodland’s collective canopy that many yews were living in very shady conditions in the lowest levels of the dene. Furthermore, from the topography of the dene which runs west to east, the steepest and deepest north facing sections of the ravine suggested that some of the yews living in those microhabitat conditions may not see direct sunlight for months on end: possibly in some places in the darkest depths of the dene, perhaps never. And yet there seemed to be no evidence upon these particular trees of extensive adventitious (also called epicormic) growth - when the yew sprouts ‘wands’ of upright twigs and foliage directly from the surface of a branch or trunk, and is a common indicator of a yew trying to boost light levels to improve photosynthesis.* * Yew habitats in the Borrowdale valley, including Stonethwaite village, never see direct sunlight from November to March due to the surrounding topography of the mountains and yet show little signs of such growth except on the lowest section of trunk in response to browsing by animals. Perhaps some of these yews in Castle Eden Dene had adapted to the relative ‘twilight’ environment over many centuries and perhaps had no need to produce adventitious shoots? In any case, this growth habit of yews is often a response to sudden, prolonged and significant reductions in direct sunlight availability. This effect can be seen on ancient yews which have become overshadowed by dense surrounding plantation crops in the last fifty years (for example at Inchbrakie, a private site in Perthshire, Scotland - see AYG Gazetteer online at www.ancient-yew.org for further information). If adventitious growth was not a necessity to maximise light levels, perhaps it was indeed a growth trend of yews in the dene as a result of long term habitation in what is primarily, in places, a wholly undisturbed post glacial woodland environment, i.e. these trees have adapted to low, possibly extremely low natural light levels over the ages and, having adapted their metabolisms accordingly, have no need to change this via producing more foliage. Given the proven ability of yew trees to be extremely slow growing and indeed in extreme cases to minimise the size of an annual ring increment to almost imperceptible proportions and do it for decades - sometimes centuries - yet still grow abundant foliage, flowers and fruits annually (see The Sacred Yew and Yew: A History by Fred Hageneder, Sutton, 2007 for further details) these yews in Castle Eden dene may be smaller looking than ‘average’ ancient or veteran yews because of smaller annual ring increments, given the areas with apparently mitigated photosynthesis opportunities where these yews grow. This aspect of the yews ability for individual trees to adapt ring increment size to a minimum to suit the necessities for survival, growth and reproduction in extreme British environments is a theme we shall return to in Part Five. In the meantime, another factor possibly relevant to this hypothesis of slow growing yews in certain parts of the dene is the area being notorious for the onset of coastal fogs from the nearby North Sea, locally called ‘sea frets’. These sea frets regularly engulf this coastline and 10 the dene even on the finest of days and which would limit annual direct sunlight levels even further. Could the direct deposition of salt laden air also affect yew foliage to any significant degree by surface evaporation and the resulting salty rime blocking pores? What also seemed possible to consider as environmental factors which could produce slow yew growth rates here is the excessive dampness of the ground habitat, consisting of primarily clay soils which retain moisture. An ‘ideal’ yew habitat is a well-drained one as yews can die from being immersed in waterlogged ground for too long. In the ancient yew woodland of Reenadinna (see AYG Gazetteer for more details), now within Killarney National Park in Ireland, ‘small’ yews grow in profusion in an area classified as ‘rainforest’, it is so wet. It is the last remnant of natural yew forest left in Ireland and many opinions date it to at least 2000 years ago, but not all. There is, however, something curious and compelling about the place which has intrigued many people interpreting Irish legend and mythology. Perhaps this description by a comparatively recent visitor (in 2011) will suffice: “….that ancient wood, which was old when the Tuatha de Danann walked this land…let me share with you a very, very venerable quotation which I discovered…. The speaker is Fintan the seer, who claims to his hearers that he survived the Deluge and has lived in Ireland ever since, seeing kings come and go, landscapes change, while he lives ever on. ‘One day I passed through a wood of West Munster in the west. I took away with me a red yew berry and I planted it in the garden of my court and it grew up…’ Now you can't get more west Munster than Killarney, and I think that Fintan is surely speaking here of this selfsame ancient yew wood of Reenadinna, now within Killarney National Park. It gives you a strange feeling to stand silently amid those trees and moss-covered rocks, and think how long this forest has been here. Of course the individual trees grow and die (though yew has a very long life, sometimes a thousand years), but new ones spring up from their roots or their fruit, and the forest continues in an unbroken tradition.” Compared to any yews sites I have ever visited parts of Castle Eden dene (and Borrowdale) are, undoubtedly, the densest, most primeval feeling and most humid yew habitats I have ever experienced, and consequently one of the most atmospheric and magical, as is Reenadinna as shown by the comments made above. Castle Eden dene is, indeed, a mysterious place - fertile ground for the imagination because it is easy to tangibly sense the antiquity of it simply because it has, like Reenadinna and parts of Borrowdale, been so undisturbed over recent millennia. There is a ‘hush’ about this ancient dene, a profound ‘silence’ and a primeval peace born from its natural tranquillity developed over the long ages - despite the birdsong, scuttles in the undergrowth, the whisper of a breeze through the branches and the sounds of the river Eden gently filling the air. The mysteriousness of Castle Eden dene is not, however, confined only to the biology of the woodland because it also has a place in the curious symbolic, spiritual and esoteric roles the yew has played in British cultural history for thousands of years. Often this connection involves living yews of historic, ancient and veteran status, and certain families renowned for their esoteric connections with Freemasonry for example, as well as being of Royal stock. 11 Such a family were the De Brus, who came from Normandy to England with King Henry I in 1106. Over time the King granted them 93 manors in total in what was then Yorkshire, which included Yoden. Now known as the clan Bruce, this family later became Kings and Queens of Scotland and founded the dynasty of the Stewart/Stuart monarchy. Within the history of Scotland the fortunes of the Bruce’s are also closely entwined with the St.Clair/Sinclair family of Rosslyn Chapel fame, and also the enigmatic Knights Templar, who were invited into England by King Henry I, after creating their first preceptory on Scottish soil on land donated by the St. Clairs at a place simply called Temple, found a few miles south of Rosslyn today and where a boundary of yews skirts the Templar churchyard. Rosslyn Chapel has recently been planted with a yew hedge and there is an old yew in the chapel burial ground and an ancient yew at the Roslin castle dating to the early 14th century. Although too much to enter into here the historical and modern links between yew trees, both literally and symbolically, and these royal families and organisations such as Freemasonry and the Knights Templar, is truly and deeply fascinating. By following these links many previously overlooked historic, ancient and veteran yew sites, many at places sacred to the Scots Monarchy, Freemasonry and Knights Templar, have been found in recent decades and, furthermore, throughout Britain and Europe. This suggested that there are, indeed, mysterious links not only encoded in esoteric lore and ancient arcane symbolism but also involving both historic (now lost) and ancient living yews and the above mentioned people (and amongst many others) so famous in the last millennia of British history: people, in fact, who have written so much of that very history…..and still do.* * for further information about this compelling and intriguing connection please see my Ebook, A Brief History of Yew-Trees available online from Amazon at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ATTCS7K 12 Part Three: The King and the Castle There is an intriguing link between the St Clair family, Knights Templar, Rosslyn Chapel and Borrowdale - in fact it is King’s Howe itself. In 1999 HRH Prince Charles opened a new exhibition room at Rosslyn Chapel including some Knights Templar artefacts such as a Black Madonna. In a place of honour in the room is a portrait of HRH King Edward VII, who succeeded Queen Victoria in 1901. After his death his sister HRH Princess Louise raised funds by private and public subscription to purchase an area including the highest point on Grange Fell, overlooking the ‘Square Mile’ of the Jaws of Borrowdale, west across to Castle Crag and the higher fells above it, including Low Scawdel and High Spy. Out of the tens of thousands of square miles in Britain which contain spellbindingly beautiful scenery, this was the one chosen to immortalise not only the nation’s memory of a king, but also a sister’s memories of her dear brother. She dedicated it as a gift to the nation and carved upon on a stone just below the peak is the following evocative inscription: In Loving Memory of King Edward VII Grange Fell is dedicated by his sister Louise As a sanctuary of rest and peace. Here may all beings gather strength Find in scenes of beautiful nature a cause For gratitude and love to god giving them Courage and vigour to carry out his will. This gesture gave this steep craggy prominence on Grange Fell, a new identity and a new name - King’s Howe. Another compelling coincidence with Borrowdale is that the Royal Physician to HRH King Edward VII was Dr. John Lowe. He occupied this exalted position for many years, in fact since the king had been the Prince of Wales, and was the same Dr. John Lowe who published the classical and seminal book Yew-Trees of Great Britain and Ireland in 1897, featuring a photograph of the Borrowdale Yews - a historic image, and a book, which has been invaluable to yew research ever since. Why it has been so invaluable is that it recorded yews by photography, a scientific process which removed artistic license from doing so in sketched or painted images, and gave a true and accurate portrait of the size and condition of yews at the time which can be compared to many living today, such as the Borrowdale Yews, but unfortunately not all the yews he recorded have survived. 13 For many years HRH Prince Charles himself has ‘unofficially’ visited Borrowdale, for example in support of the farmers who tend the unique flocks of sheep in the valley, and he often stays in the village of Rosthwaite at Yew Tree Farm. Outside the main farmhouse is a hollow yew, one of the largest in the valley and based on appearance seems to be much older than the present farmhouse building which is dated 1703. The creation of King’s Howe in 1910 as a ‘gift to the nation’ was the first area of Borrowdale to enjoy this status. Just after the Second World War the area surrounding Castle Crag was also similarly bequeathed to the public and nowadays almost the entire valley is now managed by the National Trust as part of the overall Lake District National Park. As seen in Fig. 7 (left) below, the western path to the summit of Castle Crag passes a little bench seat with two people sitting upon it. A slate plaque is above the seat, carved in memorial to the donor of the land thereabouts as it was one of his favourite views and gives a handy respite for walkers tackling this steep path. Just behind the seat can be seen the canopy of some ‘young’ yews. Whether of natural origin and providing an ideal place to put a place of rest for reasons of shade and shelter, or planted in the mid-20th century, is not known - but the former seems most likely. Figure 7: Left: A telephoto view of the western path to the summit of Castle Crag. Sheltered by yew trees, two walkers sit on a wooden bench seat dedicated to the donor who gifted this part of Borrowdale to the nation. Right: A telephoto view of another small yew on the barren western scree slopes of Castle Crag and already being sculpted by the prevailing weather. Both in the mixed woodland surrounding Castle Crag and upon its cliffs and scree slopes are many ‘small’ yew trees. As Fig. 7 above (right) clearly demonstrates, when it comes to yew recruitment and the capacities to survive in Borrowdale - where there is a way, the yew has the will! As Fig. 7 illustrates all too graphically, even the most desolate and lunar looking areas of craggy debris are still not a challenge to the seed of a yew. We can also see how this small 14 yew bush is already being sculpted by the prevailing weather in the valley and gives an idea of what the yew seen in Figs. 3 and 4 may have looked like when it too, was a small bushy yew in such a barren exposed environment. Given that the prevalent deciduous trees are sessile oak, silver birch, hazel, larch and ash, none of these species of tree are known to regularly and reputably live for as long as a yew is capable, and this implies that the oldest trees in the natural woodland surrounding Castle Crag today should be yews, especially in the most inaccessible areas. On the summit of Castle Crag is another memorial, this time to the members of the Armed Forces of the valley who have fallen in service to their country. Every November on Armistice Sunday a pilgrimage is made to the summit to lay commemorative wreaths, and in all of Britain surely there can be few more ancient, beautiful and magnificent locations to honour the fallen than here. Whatever the origins of the yews upon Castle Crag, as a natural ancient place of fitting tribute and lasting memorial, the presence of living yews and also their symbolic presence in British spiritual and religious history give it an extra and unique poignancy. This is especially so considering the practice inherent in British culture involving people burying, honouring and remembering the deceased at sacred places and this having a deep association with the presence of yews - either naturally present or planted - being fundamental to the spiritual and symbolic power of those places. An obvious and potent example is the planting of yew trees in Christian churchyards and other burial sites (including many private Royal and aristocratic family locations) and is a custom which has been continuous certainly for at least 1500 years of orthodox Christianity history in Britain – and a tradition which continues to this very day. As with Castle Crag, whatever the origins of the yews on King’s Howe may turn out to be, it is additionally poignant that it, too, has a memorial. Because those ‘gifts to the nation’ of King’s Howe and Grange Fell and Castle Crag have inadvertently provided another gift: preserving woodland which may contain within its sanctuary some of the most overlooked yews trees in Britain, as we shall see and, if so, some of the most priceless treasures still living in the remnants of Britain’s most ancient wildwood. 15 Part Four: In Search of Sensational Survivors We have already seen how Castle Eden dene is a 10,000 year old remnant of the original wildwood of Britain and reasonably speculated if the same could possibly exist in Borrowdale; either as groves or single stems from ancient root systems and emphasising, like the hangers in Castle Eden dene, the probable inaccessibility of some habitats in Borrowdale to ‘man or animal’ since the final post-glacial period. Although, as mentioned, extensive deforestation did occur in northern Borrowdale to serve the mining and quarrying industries from the 16th to the 20th centuries, this was primarily for oak and it is highly unlikely that given the locations of these upland habitats in central Borrowdale that any yew populations were decimated to a similar extent. The modern landscape of Cumbria in 12,000 BC (14,000 years ago) was what we term tundra, as seen in the Canadian and Siberian Arctic today for example, and a similar landscape stretched across northern Britain to what became Castle Eden dene. Britain had yet to become an island and this terrain covered most of North Western Europe. At that time in Cumbria, pollen analysis shows evergreen trees such as juniper, and deciduous trees such as silver birch, were pioneering a return of the forest. Then a period known as the Loch Lomond interglacial around 12,000 years ago meant a partial return to tundra conditions for around 2000 years, but not as severe as before, and this finally ended around 9500 BC (11,500 years ago) when, in no more than 70 years, all the ice melted. This catastrophic meltdown is what created Castle Eden dene beginning around 11,500 years ago, so it seems that within 1500 years at the most, yews had established themselves in the newly created dene. Were these pioneers introduced by the dispersal of seeds by birds or rodents for example? Or, could it be that these trees were themselves part of primeval yew woodland and the lowest parts of it occupied the pre glacial mainland to the east gradually drowned under the newly created North Sea? Could it be some of the yews occupying some of the hangers above the ravine are remnants of this woodland’s root system? A woodland root system devastated by the twin factors of a mighty flood of meltwaters scouring out a vale through it and the gradual rising of the new coastal seawaters which eventually created the British Isles as they are today? When the ice finally left Cumbria most of its lakes were born, such as Derwentwater and the nearby Bassenthwaite to the north. Tree colonisation was again pioneered by juniper, birch and pine with deciduous trees such as hazel and oak soon following. Therefore, by 10,000 years ago the lower landscapes of Cumbria, under 1000 ft. (350 m. approx.) would have been colonised by evergreen trees such as juniper and ‘pine’, i.e. Scot’s Pine, Britain’s only native conifer, although some claim the same for spruce. It may come as a surprise to some people that the lowest levels of Borrowdale are around and below the 100 metre contour (350 ft. approx.) above sea level, and the floor of the valley is 16 basically a great flood plain. In typical glacial meltdown conditions the areas above 100 metres melt first and in areas overlooking Borrowdale the mountains rise to 653 m. (2142 ft.) in the case of High Spy and 783 m. (2569 ft.) in the case of Glaramara for example. This clearly suggests aboriginal tree colonisation in the Borrowdale valley was a top down process of recruitment as the upper ice melted first, though leaving pockets trapped in hanging valleys which birthed many ‘corrie tarns’, and the rest eventually forming a chain of meltwaters: which can be imagined by the way Borrowdale has flooded in modern times and become part of a greater Derwentwater lake. In Fig. 1 (left) at the beginning of this document, the evergreen trees in the foreground are a mixture of yew and juniper, including a juniper which has an upright cypress-like growth habit similar to the Irish Yew Taxus baccata l. fastigiata. All over the mountainous landscape of Borrowdale are juniper colonies, often enmeshed with yews as these are in Fig. 1 (left), and most of these areas of evergreens are on the steepest areas. I refer to the yew as an evergreen because it is not strictly a conifer as the seeds are produced in soft fruits – the arils - and not in seed cones and, similarly, the juniper produces seeds in fruit and not cones. Lowland Borrowdale abounds with hazel trees and particularly along its riverbanks and also is simply festooned with sessile oak, ash, silver birch and holly, and at the very highest levels of tree recruitment in the valley, many silver birch and ash adorn the tops of peaks. As we have seen, the pioneers of the lowland Cumbrian landscape have been traced as the evergreen juniper and coniferous ‘pine’ and the deciduous trees were birch, with hazel and oak following, and they all remain a primary part of Borrowdale’s woodlands 10,000 years later. As the yew is conspicuous by its absence in the historical record the question is, when did the yew arrive and has it been in Borrowdale continuously ever since? Could there be some sensational survivors? Even pockets which were first established 10,000 years ago or more? Unlike Castle Eden dene, and yew habitats of limestone strata such as the escarpments of Upper Swaledale in North Yorkshire, there is little comparative danger for yews in Borrowdale from weather eroding the surrounding geology so that yews become unstable, and both tree and root system tumble from the heights. The biggest threat to a yew in Borrowdale comes from storm strength winds. The rocks of central and southern Borrowdale are primarily eroded by ice causing efflorescence, a very slow erosion process which splits these igneous and metamorphic rocks along their shear planes creating natural scree slopes, for example on Low Scawdel. The scree slopes as seen in Fig. 7 (right) above on the western face of Castle Crag, however, are also the result of some quarry spoil from workings over recent centuries. These have reduced the summit from an unknown original height and mostly obliterated the remains of an Iron Age hill fort, which gave both Castle Crag and also (most agree) the entire valley its name - from the Norse words ‘bjorg’ meaning fort or stronghold, and ‘dalr’ a dale (valley). There is no doubt that the most rugged parts of Borrowdale are parts of an ancient and possibly even pristine post-glacial landscape and, since the ice melted, could still possess 17 fractions of it essentially unchanged in character since plants and trees first became established. However, the Lake District as seen today is not a natural landscape, as huge deforestation also took place in the Neolithic period thousands of years before our modern Industrial age and beginning about 12,000 years ago and ending about 6000 years ago. Originally Cumbria’s virgin woodland would have been covered in trees from the rugged tops of most of its mountains down to the flood plains of the valley floors, as the ice melted and wherever appropriate tree recruitment became possible in the various micro-climates. Therefore, it is the trees in the locations which remain inaccessible today which are environments likely to have survived both the Neolithic and Industrial periods of felling the wildwood and contain the oldest undisturbed habitats. As Natural England’s Cumbria Fells and Dales Natural Area Profile: Part 2.2. Lake District Mountains (1997) states: “The highest mountain summits support some of the only remnants of montane moss and lichen heaths found in England. Below these areas are cliffs, screes (sic) and rocky habitats; where these are inaccessible to grazing sheep they are some of the least modified habitats in the area. Springs and flushes can also emerge here and they support diverse arctic-alpine plant communities.” Italics added. Note that in these ‘least modified habitats’ of cliffs and scree are found arctic/alpine plant communities which indicate that the micro-climates where they grow must be extreme by English standards of climate. Yews colonising these high exposed slopes surely therefore exist in an environment equivalent to an arctic/alpine one, which would surely infer a slow growth survival strategy was best for them. Consequently they may remain small enough to never have to hollow. In the highest and most exposed upland areas of north Yorkshire at around 2000 ft. (600 m. approx.), for example in Upper Swaledale, the climate is officially classified as sub-arctic. Solitary yews and yew woodland are both found in this extreme English habitat which, nevertheless is recognised for containing “ancient semi-natural woodland”. As stated in the Description and Reasons for Notification making Lower Swaledale’s woods and grasslands a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1992: “A most uncommon feature is the occurrence of yew (Taxus baccata) woodland along many of the limestone scars, a habit which is scarce nationally and very (sic) localised in extent where it does occur”. Emphasis added. As this statement shows, these yews living on the limestone scars of Lower Swaledale are not only “uncommon”, this habitat is also rare nationally. Note also that yew woodland is “localised in extent”, which can also be seen in Borrowdale where woodland yews are often 18 densely packed together in small groves, as we have seen in Fig. 2. This implies that both the yew woodland and solitary yews in Borrowdale are rare examples in England of yews occupying steep upland and mountain environments. Unless it is recruitment in recent centuries, this rarity factor suggests that some of the yews to be seen today could have sensationally survived for many, many centuries in these environments, and potentially for millennia. Regarding the deforestation of the accessible parts of these areas during the Neolithic period, a point should be borne in mind regarding the fact that yew wood is renowned for being as ‘hard as iron’, and a post of yew heartwood will outlast one of iron if used for fencing - a piece of arboricultural wisdom known to the ancient Saxons, and repeated since in the New Forest area of southern England into modern times. Until the advent of metal tools, felling mature yew trees in their entirety would have been exceedingly difficult with stone axes, although yew staves were obtained from trees for manufacturing spears, longbows and hafts for axes in the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods.. In Archaeology in Britain by Eric S. Wood (introduction by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Collins, 1972) it states in Chapter One regarding the coming of Neolithic farmers and how: “…bushes and smaller trees were cut down with the polished stone or flint axes of the newcomers and burnt on the spot, their ashes enriching the soil.” Emphasis added. This quote supports that a young/mature yew in excess say of 5 ft. (1.50 m.) girth and with a core of iron hard heartwood could have been impervious to felling by the tools of the time, and perhaps benefited by surviving this process and the consequent reduction in light and nutrient competition from the surrounding deciduous deforestation. This may explain why yew solitaries are so noticeable in Borrowdale by being virtually the only trees left in environments which probably have never recovered from deforestation after the original postglacial wildwood pioneers were lost. The Natural England information also continues: “Gills link the two zones above and below the treeline. The lower slopes of the open fell support heather moors, acidic grasslands with areas of bracken and blanket bogs. These vegetation communities have been strongly influenced by grazing stock. High altitude woodland is scarce but valley and slope woodlands are more common especially in Borrowdale, Ennerdale, Longsleddale and north of Ambleside. Stands of juniper occur throughout the area. The major lakes are dominant features in the landscape and there are numerous smaller tarns. The Derwent-Cocker River system provides the best English example of a nutrient-poor and undisturbed river”. Italics added. The fact that the Derwent-Cocker river system is “nutrient poor” and drains the watershed of Borrowdale also shows that the slopes which flow rainwater into the system come from 19 nutrient poor areas, and so here is yet another reason to suggest that the yews in Borrowdale’s highest regions are slow growing because of nutrient poor habitats being a hugely significant factor. It is worth mentioning here that junipers can also be ancient trees. As stated in the chapter ‘Dating Old Yews’ from Fred Hageneder’s book Yew-A History, Dr. Doug Larsen of the Cliff Ecology Research Group (CERG, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada) noted in 1999 that, in the Verdon Gorge in France, a juniper had taken 1,140 years to grow a mere 3.15 in. (8 cm.) of trunk radius! This means each annual average increment of ring growth would measure 0.0028 ins. or 0.06 mm – 28 thousands of an inch, or 6 hundredths of a millimetre per year, which is almost invisible and only detectable with modern optical technology. Such a juniper, if viewed by humans, would never be seen to ‘grow’ at all, even given an average human lifetime of ‘three score years and ten’. If a juniper could attain this almost imperceptible level of growth in such an environment, then the obvious and compelling question was, could there be yews which have grown the same in Borrowdale and, indeed, elsewhere in Britain? Could the small, ‘stunted’ yews living in the more environmentally extreme and inaccessible parts of Borrowdale have growth rates as low as this? We shall return to the work of Dr. Larsen and CERG later. In the meantime, as Natural England state in The Cumbria Fells and Dales Natural Area: A vision for the future: “The wildlife of the Cumbria Fells and Dales has developed with Man since the first large areas of forest were felled over 5000 years ago. Some habitats have been reduced, others have expanded and all have been modified to a greater or lesser extent. Natural processes have continued to operate under these changing conditions and this has often resulted in environmental degradation, in particular on the fells. Soils have been lost through erosion and their nutrient and mineral content has declined under acid grassland. The fortunes of the great variety of plants and animals have been closely linked to these changes. However, only in the last century, and especially since the end of the last War, with the intensification of agriculture and the increase in recreational activities within the Area *, have these combined effects of Man and the environment begun to seriously threaten the long-term survival of our wildlife. Italics added. * The way recreational activities can threaten Borrowdale’s trees is primarily by the risk of fire. Despite parts of Borrowdale being the wettest environment in England, droughts can occur in the valley and develop quite rapidly, turning bracken cover on heathland and the woodland understory into a tinder box. Forest fires caused by recreational tourism have been a problem in the Grisedale Forest area a few miles north of Borrowdale. Apart from what is effectively the loss of all soils in certain habitats, there has also been the historic degradation of some of today’s highest yew habitats in Borrowdale into an acidic environment, of which deforestation was a contributory factor in its creation. Yew woodland would not normally flourish in a wet, acidic nutrient poor environment and yet upon the 20 highest slopes of Grange Fell amongst the heather and the ling, yews do grow. Are some naturally seeded trees, or possibly stems from pre-deforestation root systems established 10,000 years ago? As Fig. 8 (right) below shows, within a few hundred feet of the climax of the mixed woodland the terrain changes to a more exposed arctic/alpine type environment. For a yew to naturally seed here, the most likely mechanism would be dispersal by birds such as a blackbird, thrush, crow or magpie ingesting a yew aril and excreting the seed - and with a handy dose of nutrient rich fertiliser via the guano to establish the seedling. Another possibility is a squirrel hoard containing buried yew seeds being responsible, as the woodlands of Borrowdale are one of the last natural refuges of the red squirrel in northern England. Figure 8: Left: Looking south at Rosthwaite Fell, a solitary yew in a landscape dominated by bracken at the climax of woodland on Grange Fell approximately 1000 ft. (300m.) high . Right: A solitary yew in an acidic landscape amongst the heather, ling and other arctic/alpine plants below the summit of King’s Howe on Grange Fell, at an altitude of approximately 1200ft (390 m.) The mountaintop habitat of the yew in Fig. 8 (right) above, a male of 2 ft. (60 cm.) girth, is arctic/alpine and one where plants and trees typically grow smaller to survive the exposure to cold and wind and eventually become ‘dwarf’ species, for example as birch, willow and bilberry grow on the tundra within the Arctic Circle. So although appearing to be a young yew of less than 200 years of age based on size alone, the implications are that this could well be a very slow growing yew and, if so, much older than its girth size suggests. It also seemed to me that this tree’s foliage in the right of Fig. 8 was curled tighter than yews further down these slopes which have the typical sharp foliage profile of small, young yews, as seen in Fig. 8 (left) above and Fig. 9 below. This reminded me of ancient yews I have seen in Scotland, including the Great Yew of Glen Lyon at Fortingall, with distinctive ‘cumulus cloud’ shaped bunches of foliage. Perhaps this growth habit may be an obvious response to exposure to extreme cold temperatures and wind chill factors and ‘curling up’ foliage is a mechanism to retain heat and prevent frost damage to leaf tips in this most extreme of British climates. I have personal experience of how a howling, bone-chilling arctic gale sucked the 21 life out of some brand new camera batteries, and the warmth out of me, in about 20 minutes at Fortingall in 2013 and that was in May and despite thinking I was supposedly adequately dressed for the weather conditions. Experiencing the sheer brutality of a late-spring, snow laden gale with a sub-zero chill factor in double figures roaring through Glen Lyon, and which of course is not unusual in this Scottish Highland environment, once more left me awestruck contemplating the existence of the Great Yew there and how extraordinarily hardy a tree it must be – as well as its other doughty yew companions in the churchyard. Fig. 1 shows, as does Fig. 9 (left) below, there are ‘lower woodland’ colonies of juniper in Borrowdale as well as within and above the climax woodland bordering the arctic/alpine micro habitat, where disturbance from man or animal been least likely due to comparative inaccessibility, and in many places complete inaccessibility without modern ropes and mountaineering equipment. As the Natural England quotes show, juniper and (presumably Scot’s) pine are the post-glacial pioneering evergreen and conifer trees in Borrowdale and the deciduous pioneers such as silver birch, hazel and then oak still inhabit the woodlands today. The only tree species ‘missing’ in the Natural England data, based on pollen analysis, is yew - yet yew is regarded, along with juniper and Scot’s Pine, as one of three evergreen trees which pioneered post-glacial tree recruitment in Britain, as shown by the yew’s presence in Castle Eden dene for 10,000 years. Figure 9: Left: Yew and juniper bushes on Grange Fell looking south to Glaramara. Right: A small solitary yew in the lower slopes of mixed woodland below King’s Howe. Both locations are below 200 m. (650 ft. approx.). Birds of the Corvid family - ravens, various crows, jackdaws, magpies and choughs for example - eat juniper berries and excrete them, as they do yew arils. As all of these birds naturally inhabit mountain environments, the recruitment of pioneering evergreen trees across the virgin post-glacial areas of Borrowdale must have been assisted to some extent by the feeding habits of these birds. Again it is worth emphasising that the evolution of the postglacial environment in Cumbria began before Britain became an island, so it is likely that tree recruitment was to a considerable extent in tandem with the pioneers of the bird population in these newly exposed upland areas and where these birds nested. It is well known that ravens and crows are birds which primarily feed on carrion and the range of their feeding territories 22 can be extensive and easily cover tens of square miles. Whilst crows create communal breeding areas, ravens do not and, indeed, ravens are renowned for the remoteness and solitary nature of their nesting habits. Consequently it is entirely possible that post-glacial pioneering yew recruitment in upland/mountain areas could have easily jumped tens of miles at a time due to seed distribution by nesting ravens. This in turn may have meant some isolated solitary yews were established in steep and rocky areas which have never become any kind of extensive yew woodland for the simple reason of these yews being male and not producing seeds to facilitate any surrounding recruitment. Given the steep terrain and the wet environment with high levels of rainfall in Borrowdale, any female yews established in the arctic/alpine areas would produce seeds many of which would inevitably be flushed out of their original fall-zone and washed down to less steep inclines and out of the arctic/alpine zone, where germination and survival rates lower down would be more successful, and eventually create impenetrable areas of aboriginal yew woodland on the valley’s lower slopes. As seen in Fig. 10 below this yew bush, established in a crevice of a boulder, has developed foliage (adventitious growth) which suggests light levels are restricted here. This location is west facing and the steepness of the mountainside above means that, only when the sun is at its highest altitudes to the south and west during the year, will this location receive direct sunlight. Even at midsummer the sun soon sets (around 8pm) behind the highest western mountains of Borrowdale which face this woodland. Figure 10: A yew bush emerges from the rocks in the mixed woodland of the upper west facing slopes under King’s Howe. Note the level of adventitious (epicormic) growth, suggesting low annual light levels. 23 Once humans began to explore this territory 10,000 years ago we must bear in mind that, although not used as a food source in Britain today, the intensely honey-sweet fruits of the female yew, unlike the poisonous seed, are of very high energy value to birds, mammals and humans. It seems obvious that early human visitors would already have knowledge of the opposite effects contained in yew fruit and seed – the former life giving and the other, being toxic, potentially life taking. Having the qualities more of a hard nut than a seed, only the sharpest toothed rodents such as squirrels, mice, voles, rabbits and strong jawed herbivores can either penetrate or crush its shell. To human teeth a yew seed is almost unbreakable and in any case the kernel is so tiny the protein value is not worth the effort to obtain, especially not when protein rich non-toxic trees such as hazel would have grown close by. It has also become apparent in recent years due to the latest medical research, as quoted in Yew - A History, that yew seeds are not fatal unless ingested in some quantity, however, no quantity is recommended as being safe of course. Perhaps another reason which may have occasionally brought humans to a primeval yewrich woodland in Borrowdale from the post glacial period of 10,000 BC was as a source for yew spears and, moreover, in the later Neolithic period, longbows. Figure 11: Groves of yew on the upper slopes of King’s Howe giving an idea of the density of extensive and dominant post-glacial yew growth in a nutrient poor environment containing no competitive climax woodland as the habitat does today. Although not renowned for producing the best quality staves to produce the best quality longbows en masse, Robert Hardy the internationally famous expert on the longbow and Great War Bow of the Middle Ages, states that the best sources of British yews up to the Middle Ages were from the north west of England; the mountains of Cumbria and steep ravines such as Staward Gorge near Beltingham, on the river Allen in south west Northumberland where the best stock was obtained from the slowest growing yews. 24 However, few traces of early humans exist in the mountains of Cumbria and as stated in Archaeology in Britain; “…Neolithic and Bronze Age farming in northern England destroyed the birch cover and started soil erosion; this poor farming went on to Scandinavian times (i.e. around 1000 AD). The scarcity of traces of early man in the Lake District is due, not to the absence of settlement, but the remains being covered with peat, hill-wash, etc., owing to the removal of the tree cover”. In the section of Archaeology in Britain dealing with the post glacial phases from 12,000 BC to 600 BC, the following trees are mentioned: pine, willow, birch, hazel, alder, oak, elm, lime and beech. Again, presumably the reference to pine is Scot’s Pine and this time there is no mention of juniper, and another absence of yew. In Yew-A History it states in the chapter regarding the evolution and climate history of the yew that the return of post glacial yews to Britain occurred: “…at the time of transition from pine (Pinus) woodland to mixed deciduous woodland just after 5000 BCE” However, this period was 7000 years ago (BCE means ‘Before Current Era’ and is a substitute for BC) and yet the yew has a history of 10,000 years in Castle Eden dene. Moreover, the distance from Castle Eden to the mountainous uplands of Cumbria is less than 100 miles so, if yew existed 10,000 years ago in the Castle Eden dene area, then surely there is the possibility that yew recruitment began in modern Cumbria at the same time – seed dispersal by birds being a realistic mechanism.. It is worth quoting more from Yew-A History: “During the last interglacial period, the Eemian (128,000 – 115,000 years ago) Taxus pollen reached significant values, comprising up to 20 per cent of all tree pollen precipitation… For 2-3,000 years the yew became an important species in the mixed (pine-) oak-hazel-woodland. In the Northern Alps, local values even reached 65 per cent (Mondsee lake, Salzkammergut Austria) and 80% (eastern upper Bavaria), which indicates that Taxus constituted about half the woodland trees. Ultimately a steady decline followed, as the climate changed towards the next glacial period.” This shows how dense the populations of yew could become in this interglacial woodland stretching across North West Europe and up into its alpine environments. As Fig.11 above illustrates, local yew recruitment in the mountain terrain of Borrowdale produces dense groves and gives an idea of how impenetrable woodland dominated by yew would be. It is also interesting to note in Fig. 11 (right) that there is one yew in the centre of the group, with a noticeable larger girth than the rest, and this could be indicative of the possibility this is a ‘mother’ stem of this yew grove. If so, then this is not a grove of yew at all in this photograph, but a single tree. As mentioned in The Sacred Yew, yew pollen is extremely small and hard to spot when undertaking pollen analysis and can be easily be mistaken for ‘pine’. Yet male yews are renowned for creating copious amounts of pollen and, so much so, that they literally look as 25 if they are smouldering and emitting clouds of what clearly resembles woodsmoke, as Fig. 12 below clearly demonstrates – this looks exactly like a ‘burning bush’. Figure 12: Pollen drifting like smoke from the golden flowers of male yew trees in springtime. Moreover, when the pollen sacs of a male yew are empty the flowers die off, turning a rusty red colour, and making the trees look as if they have been scorched by some invisible fire which caused smoke but no flame. Hence it is easy to see one scientific reason why yews held an aura of magic and mystery for our distant post-glacial ancestors – here was a tree which ‘burned’ but was not consumed by fire. And yet despite the male yew’s famous reputation for emitting such golden clouds of pollen in early spring, the presence of yew pollen in the early post-glacial pollen records of Cumbria seems to be either overlooked or non-existent. And this is very curious given that yew populations are known to exist at Castle Eden dene in the early post-glacial record of tree recruitment in Britain. Furthermore, not far inland from Castle Eden dene is the Tees valley and, where the river Tees flows through the area around High Force, England’s highest waterfall, ancient yew and juniper woodland flourishes on the sides and on the edges of the river valley. Indeed, there is even a yew growing on the cliffs in the spray of the waterfall itself! What may potentially account for a relative lack of yew pollen in the post-glacial historical record of Cumbria, compared to that of other trees, is that the yew is, rarely for any tree, monoecious – which, as many readers will know, means it can be either a male or female tree and, in rare cases, both. Yews established from seed do not reach sexual maturity for at least 30-40 years or so and so is it possible that a yew may be able to ‘choose’ its gender for reproduction purposes based on habitat requirements, as it is not known how to ‘sex’ a yew seed. A germinating yew seed is therefore not either sex it is both sexes, and with a capability 26 to become either gender as local environmental circumstances dictate until the point of sexual maturity is reached and a ‘choice’ is made. As non-layering yew recruitment depends on ripe and fertile seeds being distributed beyond the immediate habitat, it makes sense for yews to create an abundance of arils to facilitate this process, and therefore have more female yews than males in the process of pioneering recruitment in suitable habitats. Yew pollen borne on the wind could easily fertilise yew woodland stretching for miles in all directions, and all from the flowers of a single male yew in the vicinity. It has been noted as curious by yew researchers including myself that the Borrowdale Yews at Seathwaite, the three veteran yews comprising the grove and one younger yew down by the riverside, see Fig. 13 (centre) below, are all female yews.* * Astonishing archaeological discoveries made at the grove in 2012 by Lesley Hindson and Toby Hindson (Toby is a co-founder member of the Ancient Yew Group) raised the speculation that these could be planted yews located at a prehistoric sacred site. Although too much to enter into here further details can be obtained at: http://www.ancient-yew.org/s.php/papers-inspired-by-borrowdale/2/71 http://www.druidry.org/library/sacred-sites/lost-stone-circle-borrowdale Every year, except over the last decade in the case of what was the largest tree (now extensively storm damaged and recuperating) these yews develop healthy and abundant crops of arils, meaning that annually there are probably tens of thousands of ripe seeds on each tree. The nearest male yew I have found in Borrowdale is over 2 miles away (3.5 km approx.) to the north in the Seathwaite spur of the easternmost parts of the valley. Further north the number of male yews in greater Borrowdale beyond Rosthwaite village could easily number hundreds of individuals, from sexually immature to potentially ancient and veteran, even exceptional, trees. This shows that 4 isolated female yew trees in Borrowdale are fertilised with a mixture of pollen probably from male yews at least 2-3 miles (up to 5 km. approx.) away though this is by no means the only source of yew pollen which could fertilise these yews. In theory, any male yew in Britain could, but let us assume that the nearest males are responsible. Dispersal of the seeds of the Borrowdale Yews and any subsequent germination, given the number of male yews in the valley, would mean a continuously replenished natural mixture of yew DNA in female and male trees could grow in Borrowdale, and surely inherit ‘experience’ of the long term environmental conditions from their forebears. Evidence for this ‘experience’ contributing to growth characteristics may be seen in the low slung growth habit of many yews in Borrowdale, which seem to favour width of canopy rather than height, as seen Fig. 13 below. These trees also exhibit another shared trait - none have branches rooted into the ground and created new stems by layering, which seems unusual given the well-documented propensity of many yews to do so as part of their natural growth habit. These yews can also be seen apparently actively curving the lowest growth of branches away from the ground. 27 Figure 13: Left: on the lower western slopes of Grange Fell. Centre: on the banks of the headwaters of the Derwent at Seathwaite. Right: a grove on slopes of scree on the west flank of King’s Howe. It has obviously been assumed that the yew’s growth habit of layering by rooting branches in the ground was for reasons of stability, especially when a yew begins the hollowing process within the central heartwood of the trunk at around 400 years old on average. As the trunk becomes hollow and turns into a cylinder, a tube, then it becomes more flexible and less prone to the stresses caused by high pressure from strong winds which a solid trunk would face. However, there is still the weight of the canopy to support during the hollowing process and, in the same way the flying buttresses of many Christian buildings help to flow the load of the structure into the ground, yew branches rooted into the ground perform a similar function supporting the canopy. Yet layering of branches seems to be absent in yew habitats in the valley. Could this be because Borrowdale’s yews may not have to follow such a growth trend? Could this mean they do not grow big enough to make hollowing a necessity? Or could it be, as in the case of the yew in Fig. 4, that upland yews only begin hollowing when much older than 400 years or so? Possibly even twice as much? Whatever answers these questions may reveal, it seems clear on photographic evidence alone that yews on exposed rocky mountain slopes in Borrowdale may tacitly avoid layering branches. In the left and right images in Fig. 13 we can especially see how these yews have tailored their height to parallel the incline of the slope, again supporting that this may be a long term strategic response to prevailing environmental conditions: i.e. to keep height to a minimum. A closer inspection of all of the yews in Fig. 13 also showed no evidence of the wounds left by past canopy loss, there were no fallen branches under the trees, so growing canopies flat and low seems to be an effective strategy to combat the ferocious winds which can regularly batter these exposed habitats at any time of year. The famous inherent elasticity of yew sapwood and heartwood to compression and tension provides an effective defence against winds, giving the tree the ability to spread the wind pressures by the dispersion capabilities a canopy with long, flexible branches gives. Perhaps this may also be of benefit when bearing the weight of snow on the canopy, weather which can commonly occur in this habitat anytime from October to May, as the flexibility of the branches makes it easier to shed any accumulated snow weight by being able to bend with the load until gravity takes over. 28 Part Five: At the Very Limits of Life As mentioned previously, Dr. Doug Larsen and the team at CERG are pioneers in examining cliff ecosystems. An article in Nature magazine in 1999 entitled Ancient Stunted Trees showed how their research, initially conducted in North America on the Niagara Escarpment, had identified these cliff ecosystems as containing the oldest and “slowest growing woody plants in the world”. And these habitats included yews. Moreover, Dr Larsen had been to Britain. Together with his colleagues in CERG, U. Matthes and P E Kelly, they published Cliff Ecology - Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems in 2000. Were these investigations the scientific breakthrough I was looking for and could support some potentially similar sites existing in Borrowdale? The English site investigations by CERG included the Peak District in central England, and southern Cumbria outside the central volcanic massif - geologically both are limestone environments, unlike the vastly ancient 460 million years old igneous and metamorphic rocks of Borrowdale. The Cumbrian site chosen was at Whitbarrow, also known as Whitbarrow Scar, a steep hill 705 ft. (205 m.) high and a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, a National Nature Reserve, and part of the Morecambe Bay Pavements Special Area of Conservation, which is one of the best European examples of a natural limestone environment. On the cliffs of Whitbarrow Scar, Dr. Larsen and his team investigated a tiny bush of yew. Featured on pages 85 and 86 in Yew-A History and growing on just under the lip of the cliff, this windblown, desiccated yew bush when sampled produced results which were utterly astonishing - and almost impossible to believe. In a tiny 0.75 in. (16 mm.) radius of wood sampled from a branch over 220 growth rings were discovered, some so tiny they were only a single cell layer in thickness! The average worked out on the total of 220 rings showed a mean annual width of 0.0034 in. and 0.072 mm respectively. As agreed by Fred Hageneder in consensus with the endeavours of Dr Larsen and CERG having already come to the same conclusion: “These trees must be among the slowest growing woody plants on earth”. Italics added. As we saw earlier concerning CERG’s investigations of juniper habitats in France, it was speculated if yews could also grow so slowly to produce annual ring increments imperceptible to the human eye - and the answer was a resounding yes! This was the breakthrough I had been hoping for but I freely admit it far exceeded my expectations. Cumbria indeed had habitats containing the slowest growing woody plants on Earth, and those habitats included yews. The rings which were only a single cell layer thick on the Whitbarrow Scar sample shows that yew trees as a species have the capacity to exist at the very margins of physical growth if the habitat dictates that is necessary. And it is proven 29 Cumbria contains one habitat which includes at least one of the slowest growing yew trees on Earth. It is not a huge, magnificent tree which overwhelms the senses with its size, but a bedraggled and wizened clump of exposed roots and tiny branches almost devoid of foliage, a barely noticeable yew upon a limestone cliff-top. Yet the lesson it has taught us about the survival capacities of yews, the sheer capability to live in such an environment, indeed on Earth itself, is a priceless piece of botanical knowledge – a veritably momentous discovery challenging our perceptions about what understanding the potential ‘life of a yew’ really means. In addition to all their other incredible and unique qualities we can now truly add the epithet that, if necessary, yews can become the slowest growing woody plants in the world. This clearly shows their inbuilt natural capacities to adapt to their environment is not only breathtaking, it simply could not be greater on the physical scale, apart from not growing at all for a year - or for however long a period it seems a yew can ‘choose’ to grow at the very margins of physical growth itself. When it comes to the metabolism and growth of trees in general, it is a maxim that in a good year a tree will grow a wide ring and in a bad year a narrow one. In other words it has no choice but to grow a ring each year as best it can, and that makes the dendrochronological examination of most all trees such a reliable science when estimating an age for a tree. But this cannot be applied so reliably to yews. Apart from the obvious fact that hollowing leaves no sample of wood to enable counting continuous radial ring increments it is also proven, as stated in both The Sacred Yew and Yew-A History, that yews can also have years where there will be an almost imperceptible increase in girth size, sometimes for successive years stretching into decades. As yet no-one knows why this is the case, as the trees still grow foliage and produce flowers and fruit annually as expected. Examinations of the Borrowdale Yews in 2004, by pioneering UK based yew dendrochronologist Dr. Andy Moir, showed that three veteran hollow yews growing in an identical habitat had no consistency at all in their annual ring increments, and covering centuries of past growth patterns. If this grove was a close growing stand of birch, oak, or pine for example, then all the trees would be expected to show a consistency of what were good or bad years of growth as they all experienced identical environmental conditions year on year, and taking into account local shade and shelter factors and nutrient/water competition between individual trees at the site over the course of a year. Yet the Borrowdale Yews showed no consistency at all, clearly inferring each of these yews grew according to the individual tree’s assessment of the conditions and ‘deciding’ – as seasons pass - what it needs to do in a year, because the evidence suggests a yew does not ‘have’ to grow an annual ring the way other trees seemingly ‘must’ every year. Whitbarrow Scar’s elevation is just over 700 ft. (200 m.) and, because it is a limestone environment, moisture leaches nutrients from the organic remains of the fossilised life-forms which created the bedrock. However, in Borrowdale the rocks are too old to contain organic remains and are impervious to weathering by precipitation. Given annual precipitation in Borrowdale is extreme for England, nevertheless, it means there is little hill-wash of any nutrients from the slopes into the river - as the environment itself is nutrient poor and has been 30 for thousands of years as we have seen. Yet Borrowdale has dense, thriving, woodlands upon Grange Fell and King’s Howe for example and to support it yews within and below that woodland obviously fare much better for nutrients, water and shelter from the elements (as Fig 14 below demonstrates) than those on the bare slopes above them around the peak of King’s Howe, or across the valley on its higher western flanks. Fig 14 (left) also shows another example where the yew with the largest girth is surrounded by smaller trees. Are these smaller stems the result of natural seeding? Or stems from one root system? If the latter, and despite appearances, again we are actually looking at a single yew tree. Figure 14: Left and Right - pockets of thriving yew woodland King’s Howe. A method of establishing whether these groves are one yew or not would be to discover if all the stems are either male or female and, if so, the likelihood would be that they were single trees, which could be further confirmed by DNA analysis. Limited field research so far, hampered by time restrictions and adverse weather conditions, and concentrating on creating a visual record of the various yews and their habitats throughout Borrowdale as the prime objective, has been unable to facilitate this line of enquiry any further up to this point in time. Nevertheless, the potential for some of these groves to actually be a single ‘mother/father’ yew is clear, and further research is surely justified for an additional reason. If any of these groves are single yews, then the potential for their age to be vastly old should be clearly apparent. 31 Part Six: The Trees in the Clouds Across the Jaws of Borrowdale from King’s Howe and Grange Fell, yews living upon the higher east facing slopes of Low Scawdel, 1709 ft. (430 m.) high and High Spy 2142 ft. (653 m.) exist in a much more exposed and nutrient poor environment than their kindred on the eastern side of the valley, as already illustrated in Figs. 3, 4 and 7 above. However, one factor these yew habitats does not have is any light or nutrient competition by being in mixed woodland, as it is noticeable that within this environment’s lower slopes the only mature trees appear to be ‘small’ yews of between 6 – 9 ft. (1.83 cm and 2.75 m.) girth, most of which have exploited areas sheltered by small crags of up-thrusted metamorphic rock formations. Fig. 15 (right) below is an example of one of these trees, with an 8 ft. (2.45 cm.) girth and literally erupting from a column of shattered rock. Figure 15: Left: A ‘chain’ of three yews on the lower slopes of Low Scawdel looking south to the peaks of Rosthwaite Fell and Glaramara. Right: Detail of one of these trees emerging from nothing but rocks. As the photograph shows, there is no soil to speak of and the exposed roots of the yew spread out across bare ground for a considerable distance from the base of the trunk. We can see how, in one continuous flow of growth, that there is no point where one becomes the other, what appears above ground level then takes on the same exterior appearance as the branches growing from the trunk. Surely then these exposed ‘roots’ are in fact more ‘wood’ than root? It is worth contemplating for a few moments the history of this yew in Fig. 15 (right) sprouting from seed in a crevice of bare rock, who knows how long ago and probably thanks to a bird. Then this tiny infant began seeking water and nutrients where there is no soil, where the weather is the most extreme in England and where no other deciduous trees can grow in any number via natural recruitment and survive for very long. Imagine it a few inches high and 32 certainly probably buried under snow and ice for months on end as it slowly grew, and grew, little by little until it became a bush, then a mature tree, and able to join in the reproductive process of the overall yew population in Borrowdale: add its ‘blood’ to a most ancient mix of yew DNA. It is rather a miracle of nature than any native British tree can not only survive in these extreme mountain habitats but thrive in these habitats, because, as the images show, these yews are healthy trees, they are certainly not suffering in any way from the prevalent conditions of their habitat. They have simply adapted their metabolisms and growth rates and morphology (to stay low or lean with the wind) to maximise their use of the available resources, poor as they are here. Nevertheless, despite being at seemingly starvation levels nutrient wise and having existing in such frugal conditions which have prevailed for thousands of years, these yews are very much alive and well. Traversing north across Low Scawdel’s shifting and dangerous rocky slopes from the sites in Fig. 15 is another remarkable yew site indeed, a solitary tree standing high upon a rocky outcrop, shown in Fig. 16 below. Figure 16: Left: A solitary yew damaged by a rock-fall on Low Scawdel. Centre: View of the damage seen from above with the edge of the monolith in the lower foreground. Right: View underneath the canopy and showing the monolith lying upon the yew. This tree has apparently experienced a mighty collision with a huge monolith weighing many tons, which presumably has crashed down from the fellside above and seemingly split the tree when it hit, as seen in Fig. 16 (left). What is extremely curious about this monolith, however, is that this site occupies a small promontory in the terrain. It seems unlikely that a slab shaped boulder with such a mass fell from the slopes and rolled all the way down a decreasing incline, was not halted by other rocks, and then continued across some fairly level ground to collide with this yew and, moreover, for the yew to halt such a huge momentum of force. * * Speculation since the site visit in 1999 due to unpublished archaeological discoveries recently made in Borrowdale, can consider the astonishing possibility that perhaps this fallen slab of stone is not a result of natural rock fall geomorphology, but was once raised here as a sacred monolith. If so, it could be part of a sighting system spread throughout Borrowdale 33 and beyond for both navigating the landscape and observing celestial events to calibrate the agricultural year. Research is currently being conducted to investigate this exciting and intriguing possibility further. If ever there was a salutary example of a yew recovering from serious damage then this tree fits that bill. Entering the space underneath the canopy (another small shelter created by an outcrop of rock) it is simply astonishing to see how this yew has grown after the apparent impact with the monolith. Emerging from the base of the damaged portion lying under the slab, the yew has created a thick, sinuous growth almost like a great snake, which curves across the sheer rock face from the base of the tree and down into the ground, as seen in the composite image in Fig. 17 below. Figure 17: A composite image of the remarkable growth this tree has created in response to having a great slab of rock fall upon it. It is a genuinely astonishing sight, and as if we can almost see the sheer ‘thought’ that has gone into resolving a recovery strategy from a sudden and serious setback. What seems puzzling, however, is that the obvious strategy, surely to connect with the ground to maximise stability as soon as possible by growing straight down the rock face, has not been applied here. Instead the yew has adopted a strategy which seems to ensure maximum contact with the rock’s contours to exploit the support it provides for the canopy being suddenly tilted downhill by the impact, as Fig. 16 (left) above demonstrates all too clearly. Note too in Fig. 17 how the yew has also borne the weight of this slab of rock teetering above the drop below, and the way the yew has grown from underneath it in such a form which clearly suggests how it has borne this weight by thickening the morphology of wood beneath. 34 In the upper right image of Fig. 17 we can also see the remains of a dead branch and how it is being absorbed by the growth of new wood. This, in itself, is indicative that this yew may have been growing for a long time since the collision, and parts of it may have died which have now been absorbed by new sapwood and bark which is a known growth trait of yews. It was not possible to take any girth measurements, because this yew does not have a girth as such but, on mass alone, it is the biggest yew I was able to investigate in this extreme habitat on the western flanks of Borrowdale - and is also one of the most remarkable yews I have ever seen. The undulating mass of growth, almost as if it consists of muscles, and the simply exquisite exploitation of the contours of the rock in Fig. 17 is truly a sight to experience first-hand and, contemplating this scene, I for one cannot help but see intelligence in it. The amount of time it has taken this tree to flow itself along the rock face in the way it has we may never know, but considering the distance from the impact site to the ground, and then the thickness of these limbs covering that distance, implies it has taken a long time. Given the exposed and barren habitat which would probably induce slow rates of annual growth, this could be a very, very old yew indeed. However, there is another possible scenario to explain what we see today in that this tree may have grown upwards from below the lower left corner of Fig. 17 and it is worth mentioning that the yew growth continues for some distance out of the photograph’s limits. Perhaps we are looking at the actual trunk of a yew snaking across this crag, which then branched once it reached the open rim of the rock face above and had the space to do so and was then smashed by the stone. Hence what also cannot be discounted is that there was never a collision at all, and this yew has grown up and around this slab and given the illusion it has been split by an impact. Second opinions of this site, as with so many others in Borrowdale, are of course a necessary part of further investigations beyond this point in time. Yet it is more than mere speculation on my part that this tree was battered somehow by the monolith, either falling from the heights or perhaps just recording how far away from the tree it originally stood before toppling. If so then this yew stands here as the most resolute example of the sudden and extreme events – and excluding extreme weather - which yews can withstand in Borrowdale if necessary, and including possibly having to stop dead in its tracks a considerable tonnage of rock in order to prevent being torn, roots and all, off the mountain and into the valley below. As well as the examples of yew habitats on the raw mountain slopes of western Borrowdale as shown above, Fig. 18 below identifies more yew habitats in the northern section of this area occupying the very margins of the terrain where yew recruitment and survival is possible. These locations have yet to be more closely investigated, but it is clear from Fig. 18 (right) that, although appearing as mere dark dots below the peak in the upper right of the image, these yews have the potential to be considerably sized trees. As they occupy steep and vertical environments which have been shown by Dr Larsen and CERG to contain the slowest 35 growing woody plants on Earth, the question is, could these yews be exceptionally slow growing? Figure 18: Left: Telephoto view of the evergreen colours of yew and juniper colonies emerging in the autumn upon the cliffs and scree below High Spy. Right: The landscape of western Borrowdale in a summer drought, with solitary yews occupying the highest habitats. Fig. 18 (right) speaks for itself in that virtually the only trees at the upper limit of recruitment are yews and where there is clearly no soil and presumably very poor nutrient content as a result - yet enough to host a yew population of possibly around 20 trees, as judged from the distance in the photograph. Are these trees a result of fairly modern recruitment in the last 500- 1,000 years by bird dispersal? Or are they sensational survivors? It is possible that above the visible skyline in Fig. 18 (right) more solitary yews exist in a habitat zone which occupies altitudes between 1800 – 2,000 ft. (450 – 600 m. approx.) and bearing in mind that yew bushes, akin to the one examined at Whitbarrow Scar, could well be dotted all over this terrain and be too small to show up in Fig. 18., as obviously only the largest of the yews are visible. Fig. 18 (left) also shows how the yew bushes are colonising the crags and are, technically, living in strictly cliff habitats, particularly as seen in the centre of the image where bushes of 36 yew are evident upon the very centre of the cliff face. But some of these yews are not bushes at all. To give a sense of scale to this image, please note the silver birch in the photograph just above the centre of the lower edge. The visible white section of trunk and forked branch is about 20 ft. (6 m.) high and the whole tree about 40 ft. (12 m.). A comparison of scale shows yews in the image – for example the yew on the cliff at the centre - to have canopies 40 ft. wide (12 m. approx.) hence, these are not ‘bushes’, but yews of considerable canopy size which infers they could have a mass of wood to match. 37 Part Seven: From River Deep to Mountain High As seen in Fig. 19 below the yew habitats of Borrowdale begin at the edge of the river Derwent and its tributaries at the lowest elevations possible in the valley, the floodplain. Figure 19: Left: Natural recruitment of ‘young- looking’ yews along the banks of Langstrath Beck, a tributary of the river Derwent which flows through the Stonethwaite valley section of eastern Borrowdale. Right: Yew on the riverbank of the headwaters of the Derwent at Seathwaite in the far south of Borrowdale. The tree featured in Fig. 19 (right) stands below the famous Borrowdale Yews near Seathwaite in the southernmost spur of the Borrowdale valley, and is female with a 12 ft. (3.65 m.) girth. Dendrochronological analysis by Dr. Andy Moir in 2004 estimated a minimum age of 400 years for this yew – just over a quarter of the age of its kindred nearby and yet it is already half the girth size of the two largest yews of that group, which are at least 1,500 years old. Even here though, there is a difference in habitat between this riverbank site and the grove which grows about 50 ft. (15 m. approx.) above it. What is a barely trickling stream in Fig. 19 (right) can, in a matter of as little as tens of minutes, become a raging, crashing torrent of white water, tumbling heavy boulders along the course of the river with ease, and scouring the riverbanks of anything it can. This yew stands in the teeth of such tumultuous events and occupies an area regularly flooded by the northward draining of the highest watershed in England. Surely this must have mitigated the tree’s growth over its lifetime in a way not experienced by its near neighbours living above it? They, for example, never experience a root system being underwater for any length of time, whereas the riverbank yew’s habitat has been regularly submerged by floodwaters in 38 the last 400 years unlike the habitat on slightly higher ground, which only a flood totally submerging all the buildings in Borrowdale, and then some, could achieve. Extensive flooding in the 20th century in Borrowdale was so bad that by the 1980’s the book Shell Guide to England reported that only one yew had survived from the four described by William Wordsworth in his poem Yew-Trees published in 1803. Therefore, within just a few tens of paces of fellside at the lowest margins of tree recruitment possible in Borrowdale, we have a yew habitat so different when it comes to growing conditions between one yew on the riverside, and three more just a little way above it. Applying this to Borrowdale as a whole, we can see that the valley is not by any means just one yew habitat - not ‘one’ yew location - as the yews occupy all the climatic zones covering an altitude of at least 1,500 ft. (450 m.) from the riverbanks to the limits of yew recruitment which has not as yet been confined to an upper limit in Borrowdale. At present the number of known individual ancient and veteran yews in the whole of Britain is less than 3000 trees. In Borrowdale alone, and compartmentalising its yews in the various micro-climatic zones by altitude, there could easily be hundreds of yews in each category i.e. ancient yews over 500 years old, veteran yews of 1,000 – 1,500 and, as yet, an unknown upper age limit which has the clear potential to exceed 2,000 years, perhaps more if some truly sensational survivors do exist. In my view I cannot see how a yew by a riverbank in Borrowdale can be compared to a yew in the valley growing above 1,000 ft., which is the official classification for the lowest height of a mountain in Britain, when it comes to expectations of age based on girth size. The Borrowdale valley, as a whole, is hence not ‘one’ yew location. Just as there are hundreds of sites in England and Wales containing ancient and veteran churchyard yews within a few miles of each other, the yew sites of Borrowdale in floodplain, lower mixed woodland, climax mixed woodland, arctic/alpine and cliff environments should be seen as being as separate as churchyard etc. locations are, as indeed the other locations in the valley are where planted yews are found in ‘modern’ churchyards (less than 400 years old) and outside the oldest homes, farmhouses and other buildings such as hotels and cafes. Within Borrowdale today are found the tiniest of seedling yews, just a few weeks old, to the mighty veteran trees of the grove which are proven to have stood there for at least 1,500 years. And in between are all ages of yews, especially those ‘small’ planted yews of an as yet indeterminate age status up to 400-500 years old which, nevertheless, is verging on the minimum requirement for ancient classification and are easily accessible for further investigation in the villages and hamlets of Grange, Rosthwaite, Stonethwaite, Seathwaite and Seatoller. All in the same valley these places may be, but they are rightly categorised as separate sites because of the horizontal distances between these locations and differentiations in local growth habitat factors such as the effects pruning has had on some of them. Should the same not apply to the vertical distances between natural yew sites in Borrowdale? As emphasised earlier, a yew living on the sheltered lowest slopes of King’s Howe in mixed woodland by the river in the Jaws of Borrowdale, is in a completely different environment to 39 one living just below the mountain’s summit, and both are likely to have considerably different annual ring increments due to habitat and climatic dictates. It is just the same distance between the habitats, in fact more, as there is between the historic, ancient and (possibly) veteran yews in the separate sites of Rosthwaite village alone, i.e. garden, farmhouse, hotel and riverbank and spanning an estimated age range from 100 years to possibly 1000 years plus in an area no more than a few hundred paces across at its widest. Therefore, the justification to see Borrowdale as an area of vertically spaced yew habitats with distinctions affecting growth habits caused by these micro habitats is clear. In Fig. 18 (right) above we can see how yews have colonised a distinctive peak on these slopes and the geological feature they occupy has its own habitat ‘border’ created by the natural features. Hence, this is surely as individual site in its own right in Borrowdale as a churchyard which contains multiple yews, often of varying ages, within its own borders. As we have also seen in Figs. 15-18 above, despite occupying the slopes of Low Scawdel, High Scawdel and below High Spy and Maiden Moor, these yew habitats are in reality some distance and height apart from each other, the solitary trees especially are not part of any continuous woodland environment, they stand alone as any solitary yew does in a churchyard or otherwise enclosed yew site. Classified this way, Borrowdale then becomes one single English valley containing multiple individual sites identified so far, with an estimated total of possibly 300 plus trees consisting of groves and solitaries in all the yew habitats which could conceivably contain trees around 500 years of age minimum, and therefore be classified as ancient yews. Amongst them the possibility exists there are veteran and exceptional yews as well, with the extra potential of some of them perhaps being amongst the oldest and slowest growing woody plants in the world – sensational survivors indeed. As a percentage of presently identified and confirmed yew sites of ancient, veteran and exceptional status in Britain, the Borrowdale valley alone could increase this total by a factor of at least 10%. Imagine, then the potential for the rest of Cumbria alone – especially in Ennerdale, Longsleddale and north of Ambleside as highlighted earlier where ancient Cumbrian woodland exists. Borrowdale is a macrocosm of different yew habitats in northern England and other areas of Britain. Therefore, by studying the variations in this one location of how yews grow annually in these variable habitats, could unveil thousands more potentially similar locations. Perhaps only being slightly optimistic even tens of thousands more ancient, veteran and exceptional yew trees in groves or standing alone could be discovered in Britain, by extending the knowledge gleaned from an extensive study of all of the yew trees of Borrowdale, not only the biggest and most accessible ones. I would also like to raise another point when it comes to the geography of yew sites in Britain. Taking away man-made political boundaries, the area of Borrowdale occupies an area roughly at the geographical centre of mainland Britain’s north to south axis, as does Castle Eden dene - just south of latitude 55 degrees north which is the equator of Britain (a point near Haltwhistle in south west Northumberland is the exact geographical centre). Therefore, seen as being in central Britain rather than northern England, Borrowdale is surely 40 a good British average of yew growth in a variety of climates and ancient natural habitats. Conducting extensive research on yew growth in Borrowdale could extrapolate the accumulated data to similar terrain and habitat conditions to all points of the compass across mainland Britain, where similar natural sites of solitary yews or groves are found in exceptional locations and, bearing in mind as shown for example in Fig. 18, a cliff environment need not be a sheer cliff hundreds of feet high. The cracks and clefts on the faces of these cliffs exploited by yews are on faces sometimes just a single storey of a building in height, sometimes less, yet they are still true vertical environments capable of supporting a yew tree habitat. Throughout Britain ‘small’ bushy yews, or wizened looking clumps of almost completely desiccated-looking branches clinging to any vertical habitat, no matter how tall or shallow, have the potential to be amongst the slowest growing woody plants in the world - and possible the oldest yews in the world. Just the Borrowdale valley’s potential for this alone I hope is self-evident by the brief evidence presented in this document. Extend that potential to other relevant habitats throughout Britain and the degree of it should need no further explanation. Yet there is another factor to this. Many of the natural habitats with this potential are already managed by organisations such as the National Trust and therefore, unlike most churchyard and other similar private locations, enjoy degrees of environmental protection. But, to justify protection of these environments from the ever present demon of funding it more reasons need to be found to ensure they are kept, as far as is reasonable to do so, inviolate to change and managed at only a minimum and occasionally emergency level. Therefore, many managed and protected locations throughout Britain containing natural yews may not know that these environments could contain some of the oldest and slowest growing woody plants in the world. And, if so, that is a world class heritage, and a world class reason to protect that heritage – to have some of the oldest green things on the planet living here in Britain: not in the deep valleys of Borneo, or the floodplains of the Amazon or in the heights of the Himalayas, but here, right before our eyes. Having such things is reason enough to protect them - and a simple enough reason in itself for any child to understand, never mind governments, businesses and land developers. Britain, especially Wales, has often been said to be a Noah’s Ark for the remaining ancient and veteran churchyard yew population of Europe. This is especially so regarding sacred sites of various dates of origin, some stemming back into the late Neolithic period around 6,000 years ago such as Fortingall in Scotland, and which later became Christian sites of worship over 1,000 years ago. But Britain may also be a Noah’s Ark containing pockets of natural yew groves or solitary trees which could have roots going back further still than perhaps even Fortingall, as is said to be the case as we have seen with Castle Eden dene and its ‘sensational survivors’. Borrowdale, as well as many other places in Britain and as demonstrated by Whitbarrow Scar, possesses the potential to be such places too – where the oldest woody plants in the world slowly get on with living an ‘eternal’ life, no matter what Nature seems to be able to do to stop them and, possibly not just for centuries, but for thousands of years in 41 the process. And, if they do so, then how can we see a tiny, apparently ‘suffering’ yew bush ‘clinging on for life’ in an ‘extreme’ environment as we do? Such trees are not ‘just’ a yew because they are small in the scheme of things, because they apparently lead ‘difficult’ lives in nutrient poor environments where no other trees either really want to, or can, live for any length of time. As judged by age as a scale these could be some of the most mighty trees of renown in the world - the oldest, the hardiest, the most sensational survivors. And a salutary lesson never to judge a yew merely on its size alone when its history, such as a reliable planting date, is not known and its micro-habitat is not given full consideration. All sexually mature yews I have witnessed in all these micro-habitats in Borrowdale from spring to winter, and from riverside to mountain crag, all seem to have no problem, whatever their size, in producing copious and healthy amounts of flowers and fruit. If they did not would be the clearest indicator possible that there was not enough water and nutrients in the habitat to sustain healthy yew growth. The sun bleached remains of many yews, including the root base, lying at the foot of a scarp in north Yorkshire are testament to how those environments can ultimately be fatal to an entire yew. In my experience in Borrowdale the only serious damage I have witnessed has been to the Borrowdale Yews; for example, what was the largest of the group when I first saw it was gradually reduced to a mere stump by a series of storms between 2000-2005. Yet, when I last saw it in 2013, it fortunately had a thriving bush of thick green wands of growth erupting from its remaining trunk, as the tree itself is still firmly rooted in the ground. Furthermore it is itself a proven ‘sensational survivor’ (as are all three remaining trees) of historic and catastrophic wind damage, as John Lowe’s Victorian photographs revealed by comparison when the grove was re-photographed in the mid 1990’s. I have yet to come across - and hopefully never will - the remains of an entire yew tree, rootstock and all, lying dead anywhere in Borrowdale. Occasionally there are small branches, and the inevitable falling of the dried, stick like twigs from the lowest parts of a canopy but, unlike the larger and more numerous remains in Castle Eden dene (as seen in Fig. 6) that is all. The weather and the environment in Borrowdale do not take a mortal toll on yew trees as they do in north Yorkshire and Co. Durham. One factor, ironically, is the relative stability of even the most barren terrain in Borrowdale which does not erode from under the root system of a yew faster than it can secure itself, and nor is the ground likely to become unstable due to waterlogging and be prone to a landslip. As we have seen in Fig. 6 (right), steep ground in Castle Eden dene is a mixture of loosely compacted glacial moraine, boulder clay and light sandy soil and especially when soaked with water it is a very loose and unstable environment. This could mean that, in the steepest parts of the woodland in Castle Eden dene, the larger and heavier yews become, the more they could be putting themselves at risk to displacement and death via a landslip. As Fig. 6 illustrates, it is not a small, insignificant stem which has toppled here but a stem of some considerable size. Borrowdale does not have this problem of terrain becoming either more 42 unstable the wetter it becomes, or because sedimentary rock strata harbouring yew habitats is continually eaten away due to annual erosion by precipitation and fracturing by efflorescence. The roots of any yews in Borrowdale penetrate cracks and fissures into the ancient bedrocks of the valley, mainly around 450 million years old, which give enough stability for the yews to withstand the ferocious winds which regularly storm across Cumbria from any direction and also, in the case of the riverside yews, resist the enormous pressure of tons of floodwaters washing around their trunks and the surface levels of the rootstock. With the stability of a rootstock secured from a young age, any yew seedlings in Borrowdale would then be able to slowly adapt to the climatic conditions year on year safe in the knowledge it had a firm hold with which to do so. Annual growing conditions of poor nutrient availability and climatic conditions in the highest or most exposed habitats would surely mean, as hypothesised earlier, that a yew would not have to grow big to become old. Ironically the most damage to yews caused by the climate in Borrowdale in my experience over more than 20 years has been to its biggest, and as yet identified, oldest trees. In 2004 Dr Andy Moir’s investigations proved that yews living in Borrowdale could reach 1500 years of age. Why that itself was so vitally important is that it scientifically established that yes, that ‘magical’ benchmark figure of a yew living for 1000 years was not only reached, but breached by a further 50 per cent at 1500 years - and outside a churchyard. The next ‘barrier’ to be breached is to find dendrochronological proof of yews living for 2000 years in natural habitats - which is fraught with difficulty, as mentioned previously, because of the hollowing process in large ancient and veteran yews leaving no physical material to examine. In 2004 the aim was to possibly breach that barrier of 2000 years and be able to say that a yew had indeed been living since prehistory according to our Gregorian calendar system. Because the Borrowdale Yews are the largest trees so far found in the valley, the common sense assumption was that there were no other yews in Borrowdale which may have any dendrochronological potential to be older than the mighty yews of the grove. That may not be the case after all - there could be some sensational survivors whose roots were established millennia ago. Roots which have branched, flowered, fruited and reproduced to create some of the oldest living beings certainly in Britain, and perhaps in the entire world. 43 Reference Sources and Acknowledgments Ancient Yew Group co-founder members and members: personal correspondence. Bellamy, Prof. D., OBE: personal correspondence. Bevan-Jones, R.: personal correspondence. Chetan, A. and Brueton, D., 1994: The Sacred Yew, Rediscovering the ancient Tree of Life through the work of Allen Meredith, Penguin Arkana. Hardy, R. CBE, FRSA – Personal correspondence. Higham, N.J. (1986): The Northern counties to AD 1000: A regional history of England. Longman Press. Greenwood, P., (2004): Ancient Yews in Cumbria - New Research, Newsletter No. 13, Tree Register of Great Britain and Ireland. - 2006: published in English in Der Eibenfreund, 13, Sitka Verlag. - 2012: A Brief History of Yew-Trees, Ebook available at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ATTCS7K - 2013 William Wordsworth and the Yew-Trees of Borrowdale Ebook available at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GFA1EH2 Hageneder, F.: (2007) Yew - A History, Sutton. - 2011 Reprinted in paperback by the History Press. Larson, D.W., Cliff Ecology Research Group, 1999: Ancient Stunted Trees - Nature, Vol. 398. Larson, D.W., Matthes U. and Kelly, P. E., 2000: Cliff Ecology - Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, Cambridge University Press. Larson, D. W., Cliff Research Ecology Group: personal correspondence. Lowe, J. (1897): Yew -Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Macmillan, London. Moir, Dr. A: Personal correspondence. 44 Marren, P. (1992): The Wild Woods, A Regional Guide to Britain’s Ancient Woodland Nature, Conservancy Council. Natural England (1997): Cumbria Fells and Dales Natural Area Profile: Part 2.2. Lake District Mountains Pennington, W. (1970). "Vegetational history of north-west England: a regional study". In Walker, D., West, R. Studies in the vegetational history of the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, S. (1972): Archaeology in Britain (introduction by Sir Mortimer Wheeler), Collins. http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designations/nnr/1006029.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Bruce Castles that have belonged to the Clan Bruce include: Airth, Clackmannan Tower, Culross Palace, Fingask, Fyvie, Kinross House, Lochleven, Lochmaben, Muness, Thomaston and Turnberry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cumbria http://www.sssi.naturalengland.org.uk/science/natural/profiles/naProfile10.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitbarrow Reenadinna - http://celticmemoryyarns.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/of-brigits-cloak-ancient-yewforest-bee.html To those whose names are not mentioned in the article my deepest and eternal thanks for all the support, advice, inspiration and data involved in this go to: my family, Ancient Yew Group, Prof. David Bellamy, Der Eibenfreund, Janis Fry, Sebastian Fumoleau, Andrew Garbutt, Arran Kenneth Greenwood, Joe Haydon, Gaye Hills, John Laverick, Jehanne and Rob Mehta, Bill Mason, Fiona Mclaren, Dr. Andy Moir, Kevin Milburn, Don Morton, Peter Norton, Oz and the Osbornes, Amy Swan and sincere apologies for any omissions but you know who you are. And also my gratitude to yew enthusiasts everywhere and of course to the yew trees themselves. Copyright © Paul W. Greenwood 2014. All Rights Reserved. The moral rights of Paul W. Greenwood have been asserted as the author of this work and identified under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast. 45 All photographs in this book are copyright © Paul W. Greenwood. All Rights Reserved. No image may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the photographer. Contact Email: yewtreesuk@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YewTreesBritain 46

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