Photo : Gérard Janot / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Ifs de la Haye de Routot
La Haye-de-Routot is a village in the Eure on the southern edge of the Brotonne forest, in the Boucles de la Seine Normande regional nature park. It is known for two yews reputed to be thousand years old, which local brochures estimate at some 1,500 or 1,600 years, the exact age remaining uncertain.
The more remarkable one is hollow and shelters a small chapel, dedicated according to the sources to Saint Anne; the other has been made into an oratory dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, with a statue of the Virgin placed in the trunk. A chapel has been set up in one of the yews since 1866.
The village is also associated with a living tradition, the Saint-Clair fire, lit every 16 July by the Confrérie de Charité, founded in 1496. Several hiking circuits cross the Brotonne forest and lead to the yews.
