WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.

WAREHAM and Corfe are the keys of Purbeck, or rather Corfe is the fortress and Wareham the bridge-head of that bold projection of the chalk of Dorset, the southern headland of which bears the name of the protomartyr of England, and of which the triple spurs of Durlston, Peverell, and Studland form the eastern points, each with its own bay, and the whole protecting from the prevalent west wind the great indentation of the coast between Purbeck and the Needles, in the bight of which opens the harbour of Poole, and, under Hengistbury Head, the mouth of the twin streams that once gave name to Christchurch, before either castle or priory rose upon the banks of the Avon.

To the Northmen, these headlands, bays, and rivers were intimately known. Their long ships here found shelter while the hardy seamen ravaged the country of which they were one day to become joint inheritors. Though called, like Sheppy and Portland, an island, Purbeck is, in truth, not even a peninsula. If, indeed, it were to subside from 50 feet to 100 feet, the great chalk ridge which extends from Lulworth to Studland would alone be visible above the waters, and the low broad valley which marks the course of the Nether Frome and the Piddle would be covered, and form, with Poole harbour, a considerable estuary. Even now the river valleys are low and moist, and in the eighth and ninth centuries were no doubt an impracticable morass. Where nature had done so much, there remained but little needed from art, and accordingly the military remains in Purbeck are scanty. Worbarrow, a strong half-circular camp of banks and ditches, crowns the steep cliff at one end of the great ridge, and Corfe or Corfe-gat, occupies a gap or gate near its centre, while Wareham, posted to the landward of the marsh, and between the two rivers, guards effectually the approach from the north. Camps on sea-cliffs are generally supposed the work of those who used the sea, and drew up their galleys upon the beach; if this be so, Worbarrow must be the work of the Northmen, though in any other position it would be regarded as British. Corfe is probably entirely an English port; what Wareham is forms the subject of the present notice.

Wareham, a town which is still a Parliamentary borough, though one of its members was shorn away in the great struggle for reform, is built upon a knoll of chalk, the eastern extremity of a broad low ridge which descends and becomes narrower from the west and north-west, and finally sinks down into the lowland a little east of the town. This ridge divides the valleys of the Frome and the Piddle, the principal streams of Dorset, and its termination marks the meeting of the waters which flow together into the backwater of Poole Harbour. The Piddle lies to the north of the ridge, and the Frome to the south. The town between them is about half a mile broad, and their bridges are connected by its main street. In figure the town is nearly square, the west face about 600 yards, the north face 650 yards, and the area is pretty evenly divided by the main street, which is crossed by a second street, at right angles, thus dividing the town, after the Roman fashion, into four quarters. As at Wallingford and Tamworth the outline of this rectangular figure is an earthwork, within which the town was built, and which is now all too wide for its shrunken prosperity. The defence is a simple bank and ditch, the contents of the latter being piled up to add to the height of the former; but as the area inclosed is naturally high, with a steep slope to the north and east, on these two sides the bank is a scarp only, the river on the north forming the ditch. To the east the ground is not quite so low, and there is no river: here therefore is a ditch. The northern scarp is about 45 feet high, with a slope varying from one and a half to two to one. Its crest is 15 feet broad, and it rises about 15 feet above the ground within and behind it. Towards the west end this bank is rugged and angular; the eastern half is very uniform, and seems never to have been disturbed.

The northern side is straight, or nearly so; the eastern has a low salient near its centre. This side is not carried to the river. There is indeed a hollow way, which seems to represent the ditch, but the bank is wanting for the last 200 or 300 yards. The western face is far stronger, and more perfect. Here the bank, of full size, is carried down to the margin of the river, and the ditch is broad and deep. This was the weak side, the exterior ground being high. This bank also is much cut about, and it is pretty clear that in the Parliamentary wars an attack must have been apprehended from the north-west, as the bank is notched as for embrasures for guns, and there are various small mounds to prevent them from being reached by a lateral and raking fire. The ditch also, instead of being cut to a central line, V-shaped, as usual in mediæval fortifications, and as is the case with this ditch near the river, is broad and flat-bottomed, as though it had been widened and partially filled up to suit the requirements of the art of defence as practised in the seventeenth century.

There is no earthwork along the south or Frome front, towards which the ground slopes gradually. No doubt the river was a defence, as it was on the other front, but the absence of any special work on the south and south-eastern quarters looks as though those who constructed the work came from the sea, and desired to guard Purbeck, whereas the historical presumption is that Wareham must have been thrown up against invaders, and that it was a British fortress against the Saxons, and an English fortress against the Danes.

Of the four pretty equal quarters into which the area is divided, the south-western contains a later and subsidiary work, thrown up upon the bank of the Frome, and a little in the rear of the main defence. This is a conical mound, flat topped, rising about 50 feet above the river, and about 60 feet in diameter at its summit. It has a ditch proper to itself, about 60 feet wide, dividing it from the main bank, and to its east and south-east are traces of other and lower earthworks, which no doubt included the base courts or wards usually appended to such mounds. This whole tract, however, is exceedingly obscure, being laid out in lanes and courts and walled gardens. Here stood the Norman castle, built, as usual, upon the earthworks of the English residence.

There is another earthwork, also within and later than the main defence, found in the north-eastern quarter. This is a rectangular inclosure about 60 yards by 30 yards, within a bank of about 4 feet high with a base of 12 feet and an exterior ditch about 6 feet broad. There is an entrance at one end, and the angles are slightly rounded off, and, as the north-east angle rises somewhat with the tail of the adjacent bank, it is clear that it is a later work. This looks exactly like a small Roman camp, though in such a position it seems much out of place. It is called the bowling-green, and may have been laid out for that game. It is difficult to say what it is.

Of the two roads which intersect Wareham, that running north and south is the main one, and leads to Corfe. The Frome bridge over which it is carried is said to replace one built in the reign of William Rufus. The east and west road is an important way in one direction, as it leads from Dorchester, and may well therefore be Roman. After reaching the cross it is continued eastwards, but this branch of it led nowhere from the town.

Wareham, like Wallingford, was well supplied with ecclesiastical establishments, there having been within its limits eight churches and a priory. The priory, originally founded it is said by Adhelm, bishop of Sherborne, who died 709, certainly existed as a nunnery before 876, when the town was taken by the Danes. The church, dedicated to the Virgin, is now the principal church in the place, and Trinity, now used as a school, was probably the chapel of the castle. St. Martin’s is a small church upon the eastern edge of the deep cutting through which the north road enters the town. It has a small late tower, but the nave and part of the chancel seemed early Norman date. The sites are pointed out of the chapels of St. Peter, St. Nicholas, St. John, St. Michael, All Hallows, and another St. John.

Nothing of the masonry of the castle remains above ground, but the adjacent walls evidently contain much old material, and in one of them is an old Norman doorway, with a bold chevron moulding round the head, interspersed with a line of roundels. This no doubt belonged to the castle.

There is a great resemblance in position and plan between Wallingford and Tamworth and to some extent Cardiff, and Wareham. In each case the general earthwork is rectangular, of bold profile, and has a single ditch, and is placed near a river, and on that side unbanked. Each also has a mound towards the river, with its own proper defences, and upon each the Normans placed a shell keep. There is no evidence of Roman occupation of any of these places, though the road from Wareham to Dorchester may be Roman, and if the line of the Ackebury ditch from Sarum to Badbury were produced, it would pass close west of this place. Possibly the rectangular defences were the work of the Romanised Britons, the mound being an English addition of the ninth century. The work has never been known as a “Chester.”

Wareham was an important place in the West Saxon kingdom. King Beorhtric, who married the daughter of Offa, and in whose time the Danes first landed in Britain, was there buried in 800. In 876 the Danes attacked and took Wareham, but submitted to Alfred, and retired to Exeter. Florence says of the Danes:—“Castellum quod dicitur Werham intravit; ubi monasterium sancti-monialium inter duo flumina Fraw et Terente it in paga quæ Saxonice dicitur. Downseto, tutissimo situ terrarum situm est, nisi ab occidentali parte tantummodo, ubi contigua est terra.” And it is on that side that the works are the strongest. Some of the Danes left Wareham by sea and some on horseback. In the following year, however, they were again at Wareham, and their fleet was wrecked off Swanage, and 120 ships lost. At this time Wareham became the Danish head-quarters. A century later, in March, 978, King Edward, slain at Corvesgate or Corfe, was buried silently at Wareham, to be translated afterwards to Shaftesbury. In 982, Wulfwin, abbess of Wareham, there died. In 998, the Danes were again there, and in 1015 Canute sailed up the Frome, burning and plundering as he went. Domesday relates that the Confessor held 143 horses in demesne in Wareham. There were two mint-masters, but at the survey the town was in a desolate condition, and many houses were destroyed.

The castle is mentioned in Domesday:—“Of the manor of Chingestone the king has one hide in which he made the Castle of Wareham, and for that he gave to St. Mary’s the church of Gelingham, with its appendages, to the value of 40 shillings.” It is the only castle mentioned in the county. Chingestone is the manor of Corfe Castle, and St. Mary’s the Abbey of Shaftesbury. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was for a time imprisoned in the castle, as was Robert de Belesme, who is here said to have starved himself to death. Town and castle were burned in the wars of Stephen and Maud. Her great champion, the Earl of Gloucester, embarked here on his way to Anjou in 1142, and William, his son, was governor when the town was taken by Stephen. The Earl then retook it, the castle holding out against him for three weeks. It was at that time that he took Lulworth, and probably built “Bow and Arrow” Castle in Portland. King John landed at Wareham in 1205 and visited the place four times, staying about fifteen days in the years 1209–12–15, and 1216. Peter of Pomfret, was hanged here in 1213. Then and long afterwards it was rather a noted seaport, and as late as 1558 ships of fair size reached its quays. The “Castle Hill” was granted away by James I. The western earthwork long bore the name of the “Bloody Bank,” from the execution there of Judge Jeffreys’s victims.

WHITE CASTLE.

Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.

During the civil war Wareham was the scene of much fighting, being taken and retaken many times. It was garrisoned by the Parliament in 1642, then taken for the king, then in 1643 retaken for the Parliament. In 1644 the Royalists took it by storm. It was in these wars that the west bank was so much altered, to make it suitable for the defensive system of that day.