The Llangernyw Yew: Oldest tree in the UK?

 Deep in the mountains of California, a famous bristlecone pine grows. Methuselah is a 4,854-year old tree, the exact location of which is a closely-guarded secret. I'm not supposed to know about its exact location but, for various reasons, I do (I have it written down). It is often claimed to be the oldest tree in the world. Whilst it is not (and certainly wasn't when the Prometheus bristlecone pine was alive before being murdered by an out-of-control student), it is one of them. But that is too far away! As such, I was shocked to discover that there is a yew tree in the UK rivalling the age of Methuselah, if not outright beating it. The Llangernyw yew looks ancient, but nowhere near as ancient as it is. The Fortingall yew is likely even older still, but is way up in Scotland and has completely disintegrated into multiple trunks from a once-monstrous girth of 16 meters, whilst the Llangernyw Yew is in the process of slowly doing so as well. It became exceedingly important to visit for me as a result. 

The cycling to get there from Abergele was the worst I have ever been involved with. It covered an elevation change of over 700ft, a very strong wind blowing into my face during the ascent, and the ascent was extremely steep as well. As such, it took just over an hour to travel the 16km to Llangernyw. On level ground I usually cover that distance in half an hour on my bike. The wind didn't let up at any point today. At all. Previously I thought the Marton oak trip was the worst, but that compared to this was absolutely nothing. The photo below shows one of the 'easiest' ascents on my journey.

After I arrived, I found the church yard and made note of what was written on the gate. I entered and saw the yew growing right by the chapel. 

For something that incredibly old, it doesn't show its age as much as Methuselah does, although it still looks very old. Looking at Methuselah, you can tell that is an extremely old tree. But looking at the Llangernyw yew, I would think its age was around two thousand, maybe a bit more had I not seen the Ankerwycke yew before and known about its age. After that yew, I would have thought the age of this yew was around this monstrous for sure, however. The first indicator of its age was placed right next to it, near the tombstones scattered nearby:

Although claims had been circulating of a yew at Defynnog being older, these claims have no evidence to back them up except a slightly larger girth than the Llangernyw Yew. Unless it is actually investigated like the Llangernyw yew was, these claims will remain claims. On the church gate mentioned previously, there was another indicator. This tree was investigated by the Yew Tree Campaign, including by professor David Bellamy, who used 'all available data', to date the tree, which very likely involved radiocarbon dating, just as he did with the Tisbury yew in Wiltshire:

The error margin exists because yews are notoriously difficult to age, and this one especially. In the past, the tree was used as a place to store an oil tank, which stood between the two huge 'trunks'. As space was made for it, a lot of dead heartwood was removed, which would have exactly established its age. This tree is the oldest he measured in the UK. The lower age boundary would make it pre-date the Roman Empire, Moses, and the Mycenean civilisation, as well as most of Egypt. Its upper age boundary would make it as ancient as the pharaoh Narmer, as well as older than Methuselah and the second-oldest non-cloning tree in the entire world, only truly surpassed by the Fortingall yew (Although some age estimates are 2000-3000 years, this is extremely likely not the case given the absolutely tremendous girth of the tree, bigger than the Marton oak itself by 2 meters and massively exceeding both the Llangernyw yew and Ankerwycke yew, which is itself 2500 years. Other sources, including a lot of modern estimates, put the age of the tree as 5000 years, and some even at 9000 years!)

The Llangernyw Yew is slowly doing what its more ancient relative did in Scotland centuries ago: it is splitting into multiple trunks. When I visited, I counted 5 enormous new trunks, although one of them had died at some point in the past, and was removed as a result. 

The wood, especially the dead wood, was beautiful. I noticed the yew had been growing living wood and roots around the areas of bark which had died off. How incredible. 

Yews are sometimes known as trees of immortality due to their incredible ability to re-generate and survive almost anything- the huge branch sliding towards the ground, for instance, can and will take root and sprout again when it touches the ground, a 'technique' very similar to the one used by the Old Tjikko spruce in Sweden to attain its tremendous age of 9,550 years. Whereas on the photos which actually do show it Methuselah looks as if it has only a bit left to live, the Llangernyw yew looks completely defiant towards age and really has no age limit if it can start cloning itself, (the oldest 'tree' in the world, King's lomatia from Tasmania, used the cloning 'technique' to attain the age of 43,600-130,000 it has been found to be recently, which is older than the next 4 trees on the oldest tree list put together) even if the rest of the tree is somehow completely destroyed, with no foliage lost at all and the tree looking extremely healthy. It seems unstoppable. Just like the Fortingall yew (despite the claims it is 'dying', which is exceedingly unlikely given the exceptional survivability of any yew)

I was staring at it with an open mouth, circling it and taking more photographs. I thought about sequoias, giant redwoods and coast redwoods. No giant tree has been reliably dated to 4,000 years old, not even to 3,500 years old (despite some conspiracy-theory redwood lovers claiming the contrary and providing zero evidence). and yet they would dwarf the Llangernyw yew. Put General Sherman, the largest giant redwood, and Samurai, the largest coast redwood, next to the Llangernyw yew, and they will instantly impress more by size than the yew. And yet the yew is far, far older than they are, and can continue growing for thousands of more years, very likely to the time when both giant trees had crashed to the ground. Here was a tree older and 'wiser' than them by surviving skills, guarding its secrets with its unassuming appearance, seemingly content with quietly knowing the truth and living longer than being massive. This fascinated me to no end. I thought about bristlecones, but whereas yews really can grow on and on, bristlecones just seem to age extremely slowly. Even Prometheus, destroyed by an out-of-control, insane graduate student when it was over 4,900 years old, even the rumoured Old Hara, with a claimed age older than the Llangernyw Yew's upper age limit by only a few decades, likely wouldn't be able to grow forever. Indeed, skeletons of bristlecones have been found dating to 7,000 years in the same area where Methuselah and Old Hara grow, implying there exists an age limit for them. For this tree, however, the sky is the limit if it can really clone itself as believed. I got very emotional because of that.

Stepping away from the haphazard mess of its trunk, it looks...well, amazing. And up close, it looked to me at the end of my stay with it like an incredible re-birth and reinvigoration work-in-progress.