I’m spending a few work days in Devon with my friend Guy Shrubsole, and in a lull between meetings he suggests I walk to Dartington Hall, where there’s something in the churchyard he says I’ll like.
I arrive as the sky pinkens and jackdaws assemble to roost. There’s a sentinel by the gate – a prime yew, with a towering, pillar-like trunk whose verticality is emphasised by cords that run directly into its roots. The impression is of a giant hawser, drawn and woven from the ground by some skilled ropemaker. The trunk bears massive boughs that droop slowly towards the ground, and sportive younger branches erupting in untidy clusters.
