This female 2,000 year old yew at Llanarth Monmouthshire, with a girth of 32 feet ( 9.7 metres), was nearly lost beneath bramble and ivy before a group of concerned people cleared it. The Church in Wales was advised to allow the ancient tree to be covered in overgrowth to hide it from view and deter people from visiting it, as it was deemed unstable and therefore a possible danger to the public. It seems very stable indeed to me, with the base of the trunk, to a height of at least 6 feet, shaped like an onion and having an aerial root, inside, which further anchors it to the ground. Aerial roots are one way an ancient yew will regenerate itself as the root will grow and form and new trunk inside the old. With the church building now closed, one hopes this Yew, one of only 175 ancient yews (those over 2,000 years old) left in Britain, has a future.