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The old yew at Ninfield is one of the most intriguing natural sculptures in Britain. After you have entered the churchyard from the South and gone some way up the path you can see the tree standing on your right on its own raised mound; the upflowing energy of this healthy veteran is immediately evident.
This tree adds its own evidence for the yew’s amazing ability to live seemingly forever. There are Victorian photographs showing a much fatter girthed tree than we have today. What is likely to have happened is that in typical yew fashion the old tree hollowed out and put down internal roots into its rotting centre. These roots eventually reached the ground and continued their growth into the soil. Over time the roots thickened up as the outer wood rotted away until nothing was left of the original trunk. The graceful pillars of living wood we see today are the expression of a resurrected second generation tree. There are three main sections of new trunk, two of which are fusing together and trapping old bits of the original tree. Eventually they may become one solid whole bole and no one will be able to see that there used to be an even older tree on the site.
The churchyard is sighted on a steep sided high promontory of land with a good view over the hills to the South Downs. On a clear day in 1066 the Saxons may have stood next to the yew tree and seen the Normans landing in Pevensey Bay.
When many trees were lost in the storm of 1987 the Ninfield yew remained although some branches must have been lost because it is no longer possible to make out the shape of an angel in the tree.
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