_Age of Trees_ (Vol. iv., p. 401.).--I am rather surprised that your
correspondent L., in his enumeration of remarkable trees, and
collections of trees, in Great Britain, makes no mention, whilst on the
subject of yew, of the splendid collection of old yew trees in Kingley
Bottom, near Chichester, in Sussex. Should L. never have visited this
charming spot, and its green antiquities, I can promise him a rich treat
whenever he does so. Common report of the neighbourhood, from time
immemorial, gives these venerable trees a date as far back as the
landing of the sea-kings on the coast of Sussex; and sundry poems by
local bards have been written on this theme.
On one of the most prominent of the South Down Hills, rising immediately
above the yew-tree valley, and called Bow Hill, are two large, and some
smaller tumuli, which are always called by the natives the graves of the
sea-kings, who with their followers are supposed to have fallen in a
battle fought under these very yew trees.
Can anybody tell me if the age of any of these trees has ever been
ascertained? Kingley Bottom, or, as people now-a-days prefer calling it,
Kingley Vale, is so much frequented as a spot for pic-nics and festive
days, that I have no doubt many of your readers have seen the trees to
which I refer, and can bear me out in asserting that they are worthy of
ranking, in age and beauty, with any of their species in the kingdom.