Fortingall is a small village in highland Perthshire, Scotland, in Glen Lyon. Its nearest sizable neighbours are Aberfeldy and Kenmore. Its Gaelic name is Fartairchill (lit. "Escarpment Church"—i.e. "church at the foot of an escarpment or steep slope"). Local legend claims that it was the birthplace of Pontius Pilate, although he was born well before the Roman conquest and became famous in the biblical account of Jesus's death 30 years before the Romans first reached this part of Scotland. A number of other locations, including villages in Spain and Germany, make similar claims. It is also famous for the Fortingall Yew, the village's churchyard yew tree that could be over 5,000 years old, and thus one of the oldest living things in Europe. Parish church The parish church is on an early Christian site, dedicated to Coeddi, bishop of Iona (d. 712), probably founded about 700 AD from Iona itself as a daughter monastery. Though undocumented, crop-marks of surrounding ditched enclosures have been identified from the air, and the church's unusual dedication and fragments of several finely carved cross-slabs preserved in the church all point to an early origin as a major church site. Also preserved in an alcove in the church was an early hand-bell in Irish style (iron with bronze coating), dating from the 7th or 8th century, one of several to have survived in Highland Perthshire; the bell was stolen in 2017. Several slabs with simple incised crosses (best paralleled at Iona and other west of Scotland sites) and a massive early font are to be seen in the churchyard. The attractive white-harled parish church (built 1901–02), notable for its fine woodwork, is open in summer. Its Arts and Crafts style was designed to harmonise with the rest of the village. A permanent display on the cross-slabs and the early church was recently installed in the building. Fortingall has one of the largest collections of early medieval sculpture in Scotland. The yew tree The Fortingall Yew is an ancient tree in its own walled enclosure within the village churchyard. Its age has been estimated between 2000 and 9000 years - with the higher estimate putting it in contention of the oldest living tree – perhaps even the oldest living thing – in Europe. Place-name and archaeological evidence hint at an Iron Age cult centre at Fortingall, which may have had this tree as its focus. The site