Wareham I?

Wareham is a small town in Dorset sat between Poole, Swanage and Weymouth. It is also quite close to the county town of Dorchester and the town-trying-to-be-a-city Bournemouth.

History

It has a river at each side, the Frome and the Piddle, and has some Anglo Saxon walls, built sometime around the ninth century AD, which mean it is unlikely to get any viking invaders unexpectedly attacking.

The walls were built over one thousand years ago to keep invaders out. At their most basic they are big piles of mud surrounding the entire town. This form of defence was fine until guns and the cannon appeared, at which point mud was no longer very good for protection.

At the east end of the town is a large quarry in which have been unearthed a number of interesting artefacts from hordes of Roman coins to graves.

If you're really interested in the history of Wareham you can visit the museum on East Street. This contains artefacts dug up, found and generally left about the place.

Travelling

Wareham is pretty much a big crossroads with the imaginatively named North Street, South Street, East Street and West Street being the main roads through the town (Hitchhikers should note that you can thumb a lift quite easily by following North Street out of town, however in the summer you'd be quicker walking).

It's not so busy since they made a bypass there umpteen odd years ago but you still get a lot of the smartypants holiday makers who think it will be quicker to get to Swanage through the town centre...It's not!!!

There is a train track just north of the town. The residents decided to bravely soldier on with the inventive naming scheme, so it is called Wareham Station.

There are buses every half hour or so along North/South Street. Be careful!!! If the unwary hitchhiker gets on a bus at the wrong time of day they are likely to be threatened, spat at, or even talked to by large groups of school children.

Culture and Accommodation

The people who live there tend to spend the winter months moaning about how there are no holiday makers coming in to spend money and the summer moaning about how there are too many holiday makers coming to use their parking spaces and drinking in the large profusion of local pubs.

The best way to stay in Wareham is to know someone who lives in the town. Although there are a number of hotels and bed and breakfast places most of them are either too expensive to consider or look like they were last decorated thirty or forty years ago.

For those on a tight budget there are a number of campsites which allow you to live in the great outdoors smelling all the sweet aromas of wildflowers, country air, sheep, cows and other such farmyard animal fragrances.

Things To See

There are two churches. There used to be three but one was turned in to an art gallery (now tourist information). First up is St. Martins Church which contains a sarcophagus with a pretty sculpture of Lawrence Of Arabia on it.

The second church is called Lady St. Mary's. This looks the way you would expect a church to look, with lots of graves outside and children sitting on the surrounding walls smoking.

If you are staying a few days it is worth going to the cinema. The Rex is one of the older cinemas in Britain and, to my knowledge, is the only remaining gas lit cinema as well. Does make it a little warm in the summer but it's more interesting than your average multiplex.

Wareham Forest is a large wooded area which is good for bird watching and walking around. If you are a little avian then it is possible to see a large number of different types of birds including great tits (Parus major) and owls (if you are avian and an insomniac) as well as less feathery creatures such as squirrels, deer and hedgehogs¹ (Erinaceus europaeus).

If you have a quick eye you might also be able to spot a few of the more shy residents of the area such as slow worms (Anguis fragilis), grass snakes (Natrix natrix), adders (Vipera berus), smooth snakes (Coronella austriaca), common lizards (Lacerta vivipara) and the more endangered sand lizard (Lacerta agilis).

Finally...

It is pretty warm most of the time which seems to make it an expensive place to live, also a nice place for a holiday assuming you don't mind the locals giving you funny looks, talking about how much you haven't been spending in their shops and how all these holidaymakers are making the place look untidy.