A dull chill day, hard after the Winter Solstice, found me on a trek to visit an ancient tree I feel much reverence towards: the Ankerwyke Yew. A half hour walk from the nearest train station following a footpath along the edge of a large lake not far west of London, and then it was trudging across old Thames floodplain fields, my boots heavy with clinging mud. I love the idea of tree pilgrimages, and I always go out of my way to visit ancient and venerable trees. 

The meadows here, belonging to the National Trust, are dotted with oak and lime trees which from a distance look strangely in leaf until I was close enough to see that they are so festooned with lush mistletoe dripping with white berries, as to make the trees appear to be still in foliage in winter. Of the famous yew, so far there is nothing to be seen. Only when I come to a slight rise in the surrounding flat fields, a dry island in the damp meadows, is there a small grove of trees, yew, box and chestnut, seemingly set at a respectful distance from the main yew itself. 

Mistletoe covering winter trees

The Ankerwyke yew is mantled by its wide branches rudely alive and verdant in mid winter, making a wide circle as they touch the ground. It is not especially tall, and certainly wider than it is high; from the outside, the trunk is hardly visible. Only by ducking under the outer spreading boughs and crouching down beneath, does the tree reveal itself in its majesty: the huge girth of its ruddy brown impossibly gnarled trunk; the twisted knotty limbs, some dead while many are bursting out with fresh green shoots. The trunk, hollowed out and contorted, gives the impression of being both alive and dead simultaneously. Yew trees are notoriously hard to date since you can’t take core samples from them, unlike other trees, but it is estimated to be around 2500 years old. Under the umbrella-like spreading  branches, the ground is dry and bare; no plants grow under yews. There’s a seriousness about the tree, a mood that I feel is shared by yew trees in general. They are not light trees, like say, an elegant beech or birch. Some call yews sombre and depressing, but to me they are infinitely sedate, mysterious and inward looking. I’ve been here on a sunny warm day rather than mid winter and the impression is the same.

I place my hands on the surprisingly smooth trunk and am stilled by the tree’s silence and absolute rootedness. Its very presence is meditative and emanates a perspective of millenia. By its utter groundedness, the tree pulls me downwards into myself, into presence, into communion with this place on earth; nothing else, just fully here. I’m reminded of Rilke’s call to let ourselves fall and to trust our own heaviness and be pulled by the eros of gravity into the heart of the earth.

As evergreen trees of extreme longevity, with the ability of their branches to  root and sprout up freshly when they touch the ground, the yew has long been a symbol of death, rebirth and immortality. Yews were held sacred by the Druids and the Celts long before Christian times, when the Church took over these sacred spots and built churches next to the yews. Over the centuries it became a feature of churchyards to have yews planted therein, ostensibly to prevent livestock eating the yew’s poisonous leaves and fruits; for the yew is extremely poisonous to humans and animals although birds happily eat the fruit, and this toxicity no doubt also added to the yew’s reputation as a symbol of life and death. In fact, ancient tribes are recorded as ingesting yew as a means of suicide to prevent their being captured by invading Romans. The historical sense of the yew’s mystical qualities have been heightened by its remarkable ability to regenerate, producing fresh shoots from seemingly ‘dead’ wood – examples being the staffs of holy men or beams within buildings.

Several simple benches have been put up in a semicircle facing the Ankerwyke yew, at  a respectful distance, where I could sit and contemplate. The Ankerwyke tree is a male yew and so does not bear the distinctive red berries carried by female yews. Ancient yews often predate the churchyards they are now found in and a similar connection is found here; for nearby the tree are the ruins of St Mary’s Priory, a small Benedictine nunnery built in the 12th century and abandoned after the forced dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. And very close by is Runnymede, the site of the historic signing of Magna Carta in 1215. The yew is reputed to be the only living witness to that human event, and interestingly, our tree would already have been a venerable 1700 years old, give or take.

Ruins of St Mary’s Priory at Ankerwyke

Yews were the favoured wood in the Middle Ages for the famous longbows, though the Ankerwyke yew, apart from the reverence accorded due to its venerability, would likely have been saved anyway by its complete contortedness; there wouldn’t have been any possibility of a straight piece of timber. I’m reminded of Chuang Tzu’s praise for the value of a so-called “useless” ancient tree, in contrast to the view of those who only see through the limited lens of utility.

I am completely alone during my sojourn with the yew as has been the case on a previous visit. Though I see not a single soul for hours, the dull thrum of the M25 motorway is a distant backdrop and Ankerwyke is in the flight path to Heathrow airport. Yet somehow the tree induces and commands silence and contemplation in this place of power. The nearby chyak-chyak sounds of jackdaws playing around together in a nearby Chestnut tree, only accentuate the solitude at the heart of things.

I take my leave of the tree and walk back across the fields, heavy in my lightness. Even a short pilgrimage is always rewarding.

“…..Each thing—

each stone, blossom, child —

is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

push out beyond what we each belong to

for some empty freedom.

​If we surrendered

to earth’s intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees….”

Rainer Maria Rilke