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Yes - I think so. I have a list of all the really ancient yews in Britain (there are none in Ireland - I wonder why) If I can get grid refs sorted out it might be interesting to plot them on the Megalithic Map and see just how they link to megalithic sites. Might answer the question - were they planted near ancient sites or are they just the survivors of a wider distibution? Yew is very poisonous to livestock and so they were destroyed, particularly with the wholesale enclosures of land in recent centuries. So we are left with mainly those ancient yews in churchyards where livestock was excluded. This has given rise to the widespread belief that they were planted in churchyards and are survivals of pagan shrines, later replaced by churches. There is some evidence that the yew was important to pagan Anglo-Saxons as an extension of the World Tree cult (Irminsul and Yggdrasil) Also, early Christians seem to have regarded the yew as symbolic of the resurrection of Christ- evergreen, longlived and in particular - the red berries as the drops of blood of Christ.
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