Wareham

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Wareham is a historic market town in the country of Dorset, which is accessible by the South Western Main Railway Line, which runs between London Waterloo and Weymouth.

We stayed in Wareham at the beginning of May 2007 and visited Brownsea Island, Monkey Sanctuary, Corfe Castle, Swanage, and Jurassic Park near Lulworth Cove, as well as doing short treks around Wareham.

North and South Street is on A351 road and the Quay is the centre of the town. There are a number of B&B hotels from economy to luxurious ones, restaurants, and convenience shops, original shops along the streets and off the streets.

Numerous stalls selling local dairy products, vegetables, fish & seashells, and accessories etc are opened on the Quay on Thursdays and Saturdays. The street market was started in the 15th century, and it still continues and runs in a similar way today.

The town’s strategic setting has made it an important settlement throughout its long history. Excavations at the nearby Bestwall included the evidence of early Mesolithic activity dating around 900 BCE, four large Neolthic pits with working flint and pottery fragments dating to 3700 BCE. The town’s oldest remaining features are the town walls, ancient earth ramparts surrounding the town, and we followed the footpath in parallel with the Saxon Wall, as a part of the walking course. By the end of the Saxon period, Wareham had become one of the most important towns in the Dorset County. With the presence of the ancient minster, Church of Lady St Mary, Wareham is called Saxon Town.

The town was setting for the historical events, e.g. English Civil War, between the 12th and 17th century. A big fire of 1762 destroyed two thirds of the Saxon Town, which resulted in re-building houses in Georgian architecture with red brick and Purbeck limestone, following the earlier street pattern, and this reflects today’s Wareham’s street layout with Georgian style houses.

Lying on a low dry island between the river Frome and Piddle, Wareham offers a number of relaxing and tranquil walks in and around the town, including Wareham Forest, which is home to Sika Deer.

We walked on the circular riverside walk on 1 May 2007. The riverside walk was started on the Quay, which was a hub of a former major port where ships arrived from all over the world in the past. As well as attractive restaurants and pubs, there were old and beautiful buildings e.g. medium sized boats steering on and mooring at the sides of River Frome. The circular riverside course led us to Frome Valley which runs through an area of sand, clay, and gravel rocks and has wide flood plains and marshland. There were a series of meadows along the riverside course where we could see big cows grazing, observe a wide variety of wildflowers thriving, and listen to birds singing among the bushes. We reached the estuary, which was formed as a part of the shallows of Poole harbour. We learnt that much of the marshland and flood plains had been restored into a conservation area. We saw some wood cutters and farmers working in the woodland and farmland on the way back to town.

After the lunch, we followed the trail which starts from the hospital on the western edge of the town. We climbed on the hilly trail and overlooked the River Piddle and Wareham Common where cows and horses were eating grass and washing their bodies in the river. We followed the trail of “Wareham Forest Way”, walked down to the common, ambled through the River Piddle and under the arch of A351 bypass road in parallel with the railway. In contrast to the River Frome which was used and developed as the watercourse for the trading and commercial purposes in the past, the River Piddle has always been used for agriculture and stock raising, and it offered idyllic and rural landscapes here and there.

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