- St. Mary’s.
- Trinity.
- St. Martin’s.
- St. Peter’s.
- St. Nicholas’s.
- St. John’s.
- Priory.
- Castle.
- Bowling-green.
WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.
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.