Fig. 223.—Iberian. From Akerman.
The yew (Irish eo), named in all probability after Io, or Hu the Jupiter,[398] or Ancient Sire of Britain, is found growing profusely in company with the box on the white chalky brow of Boxhill overlooking Juniper Hall. The foot of this slope around which creeps the placid little river Mole is now entitled Burford Bridge, but before the first bridge was here built, the site was seemingly known as Bur ford. The neighbouring Dorking, through which runs the Pipbrook, is equivalent to Tor King, Tarchon, or Troy King, and there is a likelihood that the Perseus who redeemed Andromeda, the Ancient Troy Maid, was a member of the same family. In the Iberian coin herewith inscribed Ho, which is ascribed to Ilipa or Ilipala, one may perhaps trace Hu, i.e., Hugh the mind or brain in transit to these islands.
To the yews on Boxhill one may legitimately apply the lines which Sir William Watson penned at the neighbouring Newlands or the lands of the self-renewing Ancient Yew:—
Old Emperor Yew, fantastic sire,
Girt with thy guard of dotard Kings,
What ages hast thou seen retire
Into the dusk of alien things?
From Newlands Corner where the yews—the self-seeded descendants of immemorial ancestors—are thickly dotted, is a prospect unsurpassed in England.