Betteshanger

1988 – a letter to the Conservation Foundation from Jane Desborough gave a girth measurement of 13′ 6” (411cm) at 3′. She described how the ‘top of the tree snapped off and fell on the nave roof…….the trunk of the tree remains whole to about ten feet above the ground then it gradually decreases from about half the girth to a point about twenty five feet above ground level. The whole of the tree except for the sapwood, about 10 inches, is completely rotten.’
April 2002 – Tim Hills: The yew, with a girth of 13′ 10” at 3′, grows south of a church with a north tower. It was rather one sided following a partial collapse in 1987. The original trunk had been truncated at a height of about 20′. The bole shape is slightly elongated. The yew is supposed to have been planted by Sir John Boys in about 1580.
A certificate from the Conservation stating its age to be 430 years was sent to the church in 1988.