Wareham

Wareham, a small but very ancient market-town of Dorsetshire, stands between the rivers Piddle and Frome, 15 miles E. of Dorchester. It was a British town, and afterwards a Roman station, and is surrounded by a vallum or grassy earth-wall, which is still about 30 feet high, and is perfect on three sides. A fire destroyed two-thirds of it in 1762, and a Norman castle and a priory have disappeared; but St Mary's church retains an interesting chapel, that marks the resting-place for two years of Edward the Martyr. Superseded by Poole as a port, Wareham now depends chiefly on extensive clay-works. It is a municipal borough, and till 1832 returned two members, then till 1885 one (with Corfe Castle, Arne, &c.). Horace Walpole is claimed falsely as a native. Pop. 2141.