text: A 4,000-year-old tree thought to be Britain's oldest living organism may be dying according to its custodian. The stunning Ashbrittle Yew, in the churchyard of the parish's Church of St John the Baptist, in Somerset, has a girth of 38ft and an enormous vast canopy. Its central trunk is hollow with six smaller ones branching off - possible due to disease - and locals fear it is on its way out due to wilting branches and falling leaves. The 4,000-year-old tree is 'looking extremely sick,' according to a warden at the church in Ashbrittle, Somerset . Churchwarden Charles Doble said: 'The tree is supposed to be the oldest living thing in England and was already fairly mature when Stonehenge was being built. 'Experts say it is 3,500 to 4,000 years old. 'But it's looking extremely sick at the moment and I'm worried whether the rural church or the yew will die first.' But tree expert Dr Owen Johnson said the yew, in the village 10 miles west of Taunton, could just be going through a bad patch. He said: 'They go through spells where they might look as though they are not thriving, but a few years later they might look fine.' The Ashbrittle Yew is the subject of myth and legend and people believe the mound it grows on is Bronze Age and that a pre-Roman chief is buried there. The world's oldest tree lives on a mountain in central Sweden – and it is still growing. The 9,500-year-old Norwegian Spruce (pictured right) was discovered by scientists at Umeå University during a 2004 tree census in Fulufjällets National Park in Sweden. The age of the tree was established using carbon-14 dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida after an investigation by the university. It has been able to survive so long thanks to the process of vegetative propagation, which means it is able to effectively clone itself. While the visible portion of the 13ft tall tree is relatively new, its root system has been growing for almost ten thousand years.
target: Experts say the Ashbrittle Yew was mature when Stonehenge was built .
  Locals fear it's 'extremely sick' due to wilting branches and falling leaves .
  But a tree surgeon thinks it could just be going through a 'bad patch'