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.