Boisney

September 2014 – Tim Hills: As well as the girth recorded here, the yew was 28′ 8” (873cm) at about 2′. From some angles the tree appears to be two fragments, but a substantial area of living wood links these two sides. A leaning branch on its south side is supported by chains. Bark was particularly flaky. Rising to a great height in the centre of the tree was a considerable structure sculpted from old sapwood. It is not known for how long the statue has been in the tree.
Wim Peeters: In the ‘Dictionnaire topographique, statistique et historique du departement de l’Eure’ published in 1840, this yew was described as having a diameter of ‘vingt pieds’ or 20 feet. In the 1849 ‘Annuaire des cinq departements de l’ancienne Normandie’ the writer corrects this, saying that it was undoubtedly speaking about the circumference and not the diameter. The feet used in the measurement probably refers to ‘le pied du roi’, the King’s foot, which measured about 32.5cm. In the 1853 Annuaire the tree is described as ‘about 7 metres in circumference. In the 1862 ‘Memoires et notes de M Auguste Le Prevost’ it is given a measurement of 6m 67cm.