Yew
Yew trees of Mid Wales.
A photographic attempt to capture the ambience and atmosphere experienced on meeting old yew trees. Characteristically large and casting deep shade, they can be tricky to capture in essence within a single image. Sometimes a literal translation is not enough. Playing with extremes of contrast or with colour shifts sometimes brings out the unique strangeness of the ancient yew trees that still inhabit many parts of old Britain.
Aberglasney Yew wall (in the style of W. Blake)
Abergwesyn 1.
Ancient yews often survive as a grove of apparently separate trees. In fact, they are often growing from the same root system, the original, central parent trunk having hollowed out and rotted away. Thus gauging the age of trees can be very speculative.
Abergwesyn2
Folding time and space. Abergwesyn
Folding time and space 2. Abergwesyn.
Green Castle. Abergwesyn.
Green Castle 2. Abergwesyn.
Towers 1. Abergwesyn
Towers 2. Abergwesyn.
Brecon Cathedral Yews 1.
Brecon Cathedral Yews 2.
Brecon Cathedral Yews 3.
Brecon Cathedral Yew (a la G. Sutherland)
Defynnog. The Defynnog Yew, near Sennybridge, is the oldest verified yew in Britain. It's two distinct trunks have been identified as genetically identical. It is well over 5,000 years old. Difficult to capture in an image, I focused on the details of the lower trunks.
Defynnog 2
Defynnog 3
Discoed. One of the 'younger' trees at the edge of the churchyard.
Discoed. The central, oldest tree.
Discoed. Tree and church.
Inner Yew, detail 1. Llanafan Fawr.
Inner Yew detail 2. Llanafan Fawr.
Inner Yew, detail. Llanafan Fawr.
Llanafan Fawr. Yew grove 1. At Lanafan Fawr the yew has been left to self-propagate, rooting its lower branches back into the ground. This has formed a grove of a central tree and several rings of younger trunks. An unusually open-crowned tree that admits more light than is found under most yews.
Llanafan Fawr grove 4.
Llanafan Fawr 5.
Llanafan Fawr, detail.
Llanafan Fawr. Piercing Light.
The churchyard at Llanfihangel Nant Melan has the ancient circular boundary, a ring of yews and also the remains of a Neolithic stone circle (one stone still embedded under the tree on the right of this image). Another stone circle lies a little way off in a field lower down the hill.
Yew at Llanfihangel Nant Melan.
Llywel Yew 1
Llywel Guardian.
Llywel. Sky rooted.
Llywel forked trunk
Llywel. Ivy clad yew.
Llywel. Mystery eye.
Llywel. Detail.
Llywel.