Register here - as a registered user you get more features and fewer ads.
Yew and holly are the only trees for which the modern Englsh names are of "Celtic" origin - the modern Welsh names are "iw" and "celyn". This suggests some significance attached to them.
In its association with churchyards, there is an analogy with the funereal significance of cypresses in S. Europe. The yew is the most similar to a cypress among British native species.
I take with a pinch of salt the idea that yews were destroyed everywhere except churchyards due to being poisonous. I think most churchyard yews were deliberately planted, either in Christian or pre-Christian times, because they are really only native on chalk and limestone (there are some pure-yew woods on chalk downs, and there are also wild yews on limestone crags, such as Goredale Scar).
Richard Mabey has a good section about yews in "Flora Britannica". However, in "The History of the Countryside", Oliver Rackham expresses scepticism about the supposed immense age (over 2,000 years) of some yews.
I would be interested in the list of ancient yews.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road