Heyope

April 2004 – Tim Hills: A walk-through hollow tree standing on two ‘legs’ growing south of the church. Girth was 17′ 3” (526cm) at 2′.
2015 – Paul Wood: We remeasured the yew at 2′ and it had increased to 17′ 8” ( 538cm). The tree looked every inch as it did in the previous pictures with no real differences noted. That was until I looked up inside the tree on the north side and noted something orange – a two eyed mouth end of what turns out to be a Roman period phallic handle. I am informed this dates to the mid to late 300s AD. One other example is known from a site near Wrexham which securely dated that example. How it got into the tree is a mystery. It was three quarters encased in rotting yew but I have concluded that it has been there for a considerable period of time to be firstly grown over by the tree which then rotted inside. Could this have been a Roman site that later became christianised with the planting of the yews as part of the process. Has this piece of ceramic been brought up from the depths and placed in the tree? It is of course possible that it was bought from another site and offered to the established tree a few hundred years ago.