Elsewhere on this website a posting on churchyard yews (Taxus baccata) attracted the comment that it was ‘an important fact’ that churches throughout the U.K., mainland Europe and Scandinavia were built on sites, including near sacred yew trees, which were already considered to be holy by pre-Christian inhabitants.  In response it was suggested that although this has often been claimed there is insufficient evidence for it to be considered a ‘fact’.

In this context it’s interesting to find a card, posted in 1926, which gives an artist’s impression of ‘the first Christian church in Britain founded by Joseph of Arimathaea A.D. 61 at Glastonbury’.  This shows a simple daub-and-wattle building nesting against what looks to be a mature yew tree.