Our Lady St. Mary's is the large and handsome church on the banks of the Frome, here crossed by an old stone bridge that carries the Corfe road across the river. The first church on this site is supposed to have occupied the space now covered by St. Edward's Chapel. Here Edward the Martyr was brought after his murder at Corfe Castle, the body being afterwards transferred to Shaftesbury with great pomp and splendour. The temporary coffin of the king may be seen near the font. It is of massive stone with a place carved out for the head. The nave and chancel have been much altered and partially rebuilt. Over St. Edward's chapel, which dates from the thirteenth century, and is supposed to be built on the site of the Saxon chapel, are the remains of another chapel with a window looking into the church. The most interesting part of the building is the Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket on the south side of the east end. This forms a receptacle for various curiosities, including several brasses, a stone cresset, a Roman lamp and a stone bearing a Scandinavian inscription, besides the piscina and sedilia that belong to the structure itself. The chapel would appear to have been made in the buttressed wall of the church. On the north side of the chancel is an effigy of Sir Henry d'Estoke and on the south a figure of Sir William of that ilk. The embossed alms dish and old earthenware plate for the communion should be noticed. An historian of Dorset—John Hutchings, once rector here—has a monument to his memory. The figures in relief upon the leaden font represent the Apostles. Antiquaries are also interested in some ancient stones built into the old Norman doorway near the pulpit. The ancient sculpture of the Crucifixion was once outside over the north porch. The inscription is said to be: "Catug consecravit Deo," but it is almost impossible to make anything of it at a cursory examination.
Holy Trinity Church was for a long time in a state of ruin, but it has now been repaired and is used as a mission room. All the other old churches of Wareham have been swept away by fire or decay and with one or two exceptions their very sites are lost.
Wareham is built on the usual regular plan of a Roman town, though it is not certain that the thoroughfares follow the actual lines of the original Roman streets. Evidences of this period are too vague and uncertain to make any pronouncement. The streets to-day have the mellow cleanly look of the country town unspoilt by any taint of modern industrialism, but of actual antiquity there is none. This is due to the great fire that raged in 1762 and to all intents and purposes wiped the town out. During the Great War the narrow pavements were thronged with khaki. A great military encampment extended westwards along the north side of the Dorchester road for a considerable distance, and, judging from present appearances, part of this wooden suburb of Wareham appears of a permanent character.
The road over the old and picturesque Frome bridge passes at once into the so-called Isle of Purbeck and gradually rises toward the hills that cut across the "island." The views ahead, which include the striking conical peak called "Creech Barrow," are of increasing beauty, and when we approach the break between the long range of Knowle Hill and Branscombe Hill, the strikingly fine picture of Corfe Castle filling the gap makes an unforgettable scene. Just before reaching the hillock upon which the castle stands, and three and a half miles from Wareham, a road turns left, crossing the railway, and winds by the northern face of Nine Barrows Down to Studland.
The original name for Corfe was Corvesgate, or the cutting in the hills. This is its usual alias in the Wessex novels. The position was so obviously suited for a sentry post that it was probably entrenched in prehistoric times. Two small streams, the Byle brook and the Steeple brook, run northwards on each side of the mount, uniting just below it to form the Corve River. At first sight the mound appears to be artificial, so velvety smooth and regular are its green sides in contrast with the pile of ruin on its crown.
King Edgar is credited with the first fortified building; this was used as a hunting lodge by his second wife Elfrida, who perpetrated the cruel murder of her stepson Edward while he was drinking a cup of wine at her door. The horse he was riding, no doubt spurred involuntarily by the dying king, galloped away, dragging the body along the ground, until it stopped from exhaustion. The dead monarch was, as already related, buried at Wareham, but the real ruler of England, Archbishop Dunstan, had it exhumed and reburied with much solemn pomp at Shaftesbury Abbey.