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Lorton Yew, High Lorton
Lorton Yew
locality:-   High Lorton
civil parish:-   Lorton (formerly Cumberland)
county:-   Cumbria
locality type:-   tree
locality type:-   yew
coordinates:-   NY16152549 (about) 
1Km square:-   NY1625
10Km square:-   NY12


photograph
BQW30.jpg (taken 25.6.2009)  
photograph
BVO98.jpg (taken 1.11.2011)  

evidence:-   old print:- Bogg 1898
placename:-  Pride of Lorton, The
source data:-   Print, engraving, The Pride of Lorton Vale, High Lorton, Lorton, Cumberland, by A Haselgrave, published by Edmund Bogg, 3 Woodhouse Lane, and James Miles, Guildford Street, Leeds, Yorkshire, 1898.
image  click to enlarge
BGG174.jpg
Included on p.192 of Lakeland and Ribblesdale, by Edmund Bogg. 
item:-  JandMN : 231.74
Image © see bottom of page

evidence:-   old print:- Goodwin 1887 (edn 1890) 
source data:-   Print, etching? The Lorton Yew, High Lorton, Cumberland, by Harry Goodwin, 1883, published by Swan Sonnenschein and Co, Paternoster Square, London, 1890.
image  click to enlarge
PR1622.jpg
Tipped in opposite p.256 of Through the Wordsworth Country, by William Knight. 
printed at lower centre:-  "The pride of Lorton Vale"
item:-  JandMN : 382.52
Image © see bottom of page


photograph
BQW31.jpg  Canon Rawnsley by the Lorton Yew.
 


hearsay:-  
The yew is behind the village hall, which is called Yew Tree Hall. It is said to be over 1000 years old.

Richardson, Keith: 2011: Jack's Yak: River Greta Writer (Keswick, Cumbria):: ISBN 978 0 9559640 2 2

hearsay:-  
Edward Bogg wrote, 1898:-
".... now only a wreck of its former glory. ... In its pride and strength the trunk measured twenty four feet in circumference; one of its own branches was some years ago wrenched off right down to the ground. At another time the tree was actually sold for fifteen pounds to a cabinet maker from Whitehaven, and two men began to stub it up, but fortunately a gentleman from Cockermouth, hearing of its proposed destruction, made overtures to the owner, and thus preserved, though shorn of its ancient dignity, the pride of Lorton Vale."

hearsay:-  
William Wordsworth, in Yew Trees, written 1804:-
"There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore.
Not loath to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths: or Those that crossed the Sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poitiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay:
Of form and aspect to magnificent
To be destroyed ..."

hearsay:-  
George Fox, quaker, preached under the yew tree, at High Lorton, 1653. He commented that the
"tree was so full of people that I feared they would shake it down"
John Wesley, methodist, preached here in 1759.

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