The gnarled, immutable yew tree is one of the most evocative sights in the British and Irish landscape, an evergreen impression of immortality. This book tells the extraordinary story of the yew's role in the landscape through the millennia, and makes a convincing case for the origins of many of the oldest trees, as the markers of the holy places founded by Celtic saints in the early medieval 'Dark Ages'. With wonderful photographic portraits of ancient yews and a gazetteer(with locations)of the oldest yew trees in Britain, the book brings together for the first time all the evidence about the dating, history, archaeology and cultural connections of the yew. The Ancient Yew is a cultural floral of a single species: a tree which provides a living botanical link between our own landscapes and those of the distant past.