Yew Wood

Yew is an orangish brown wood, occasionally having darker streaks of brown or purple-brown running through it. Its color becomes richer with age, deepening slightly. Yew wood is said to bring about balance and clarity between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Easy to work with, yew is among the hardest of the softwoods. It possesses a remarkable elasticity, making it ideal for any product that requires springiness. The English recognized this characteristic millennia ago, crafting their famous longbows from the wood. The oldest surviving yew longbow was found at Rotten Bottom in Galloway, Scotland. It has been given a calibrated radiocarbon date of 4040 BC to 3640 BC and is on display in the National Museum of Scotland. Yew is still the favoured wood by longbow makers; a true testament to its exceptional properties.

Yew also has a rich history as an instrument wood. The late Robert Lundberg, a noted luthier who performed extensive research on historical lute-making methodology, states in his 2002 book “Historical Lute Construction” that yew was historically a prized wood for lute construction. European legislation establishing use limits and requirements for yew limited supplies available to luthiers, but it was apparently as prized among medieval, renaissance, and baroque lute builders as Brazilian Rosewood is among contemporary guitar-makers for its quality of sound and beauty.

Yew is a small to medium sized tree typically growing to heights of 30-65 feet, with a very large trunk diameter of 6 to 7 feet. In rare cases it can reach 95 feet tall; some exceptional trees have grown a 13 foot wide trunk!

A yew tree is often found in churchyards in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and northern areas of Spain. In France, the oldest yew trees are almost all located in the church yards of Normandy, where a chapel was very often laid out in the hollow trunk.