Happy new year to all you yew tree supporters! Just before everyone toasted in the new year last night, we reached 124,000 signatures. What a good omen for the ancient yews.

I wanted to take a look at some of the ancient yews we are seeking to protect and thought it best to start with the Defynnog Yew near Brecon which I put on the map in 2014, as a contender for the title of oldest tree in Britain, probably in Europe, along with the Scottish Fortingall Yew. Incredible isn’t it that a tree can live to be over 5,000 years and still be growing! Both these yews actually split in 2 and the second part of the Defynnog yew, gradually moved some 15 feet away to give itself more room, resulting in a tree where one half is 40 feet in girth and the other 20 with a shared canopy, covered in yew berries in summer. People in other countries can’t believe it has no legal protection but that is the case, the oldest trees in the world have no legal protection. Furthermore the once large congregation that sat in the church here, taking up 230 pew seats, is now reduced to 20. I don’t need to tell you the repercussions of this. This is a classic example of what is happening in Britain today. The Church has given a degree of protection to these ancient living monuments for 2,000 years, taking over stewardship from those who revered and planted them. So what happens when a church is sold off, which like it or not, is the inevitable result. Who takes over custodianship of our ancient yews? That’s what this campaign is all about:- saving our ancient living history, our immortal yews, for future generations.

Pictured here is my painting of the Defynnog Yew called ‘Stairway to Heaven’