How 300-year-old yews are trimmed

The largest and believed to be the oldest yew park complex in the UK is refurbished every year. When pruning it, up to a ton of leaves and wood is taken out, and the work itself usually takes a week. Yew is a valuable park tree, from which French labyrinths were created in the 17th-19th centuries and planted in parks. It is considered an eternal tree. There are specimens that have lived for more than 4000 years.

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Source: terraoko.com

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2. Yews are located next to the aristocratic manor Cotswolds in Cirencester. About £6,000 a year is spent to maintain this semi-circular yew plantation.

3. For most people, hedge trimming is a dust-free job and doesn't usually take long. But in order to put in order these 300-year-old, 12-meter yews, the efforts of two adult men for a whole week are needed. Locals believe that this yew was planted around 1710.

4. At 12 meters high, 4.5 meters wide and 150 meters long, this garden yew plantation is the largest of its kind in the country. The yew, called "Mr. Wathorst" can be seen from all over the city of Cirencester. It takes two gardeners a whole week to trim these yews.

During pruning, the top shoots are cut off, resulting in almost a ton of yew tree trimmings, which are then used for the production of medicines. The trimmings are sold to pharmaceutical companies that use yew extract as a key ingredient in docetaxel, a chemotherapy drug used to treat breast, ovarian and lung cancers.

6. The property has been owned since 1695 by the Apsley family, who cultivated crops on the adjacent 14,500 hectares of property.