Yew tree, St George's Churchyard
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Yew tree, St George's Churchyard by Maigheach-gheal as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
![](https://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/88/89/1888999_af3f30a9.jpg)
Image: © Maigheach-gheal Taken: 3 May 2010
The churchyard is dominated by a 1,000 year old yew tree. The ancient tradition that this evergreen sheltered the first Christian missionaries to Britain before their churches were built is one of the many explanations put forward to account for the large numbers of yews found in country churchyards. The yew is also a life symbol, and was sometimes scattered on graves. The longbows of medieval archers came from straight, knot-free lengths cut from tall, selected trees. But these were unlikely to be churchyard yews – the best bow staves were imported from Spain.
Image Location
![](https://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64344/43794.png)
![](https://b.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64345/43794.png)
![](https://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64343/43794.png)
![](https://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64346/43794.png)
![](https://b.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64342/43794.png)
![](https://a.tile.openstreetmap.org/17/64347/43794.png)
![Marker](https://streetguide.co.uk/includes/images/marker-icon-2x.png)