Venerable Yew Trees
There is a close association with yew trees and old churchyards. It is not unusual for the trees to pre-date the establishment of a church on the site, suggesting that churches were founded at pre-Christian sacred sites.
Curvilinear boundaries are also indicators of early medieval churchyards. The curved outlines of these sites indicate that the churches on these sites considerably predate the present structures. Good examples can be found at a number of churches on the Teifi Faith Trail, including the southern section of St Peter’s churchyard, Lampeter.
St Peter’s churchyard claims fourteen fine yews, five male and nine female. In 2006, the largest was measured and found to have a girth of nearly five metres and a height of fifteen metres, the second largest measuring thirteen metres high. As early as 1810, travel writers visited the yews to record them for early tourist guides. In 1878, one wrote of the lower boughs of the yews ‘hung with pickaxes, shovels, rakes, trestles, ladders &c., reminding the spectator of heathen fetish worship.’
Other churches with venerable yew trees are Llanfair Clydogau, Llangeitho, Llangybi, Llanycrwys and Strata Florida, where a visitor, during the 1530s, recorded 39 ‘vast ewgh trees’ in the churchyard. Only two of the ancient trees now remain, one of which is reputed to mark the grave of the famous medieval Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym.
