Monument record MDO8113 - Wareham Town Walls

Watching brief during water-main works at the East Walls revealed the ditch of the Saxon rampart visible as a deep, dark humic fill. The rampart consisted of a yellow sandy soil with gravel, consistent with findings at the West Walls where the rampart is similar, having been constructed from material from the external ditch. Post medieval pottery and glass fragments were recovered (1) The walls form an oblong area containing 100 acres and enclosed by a vallum 50ft high in places, destroyed at its S and SE sections. The W bank is 1800ft long, the N bank 1960ft, the E bank 1600ft and the S bank 1700ft. The castle mound is located at the SW corner and there is a bowling green located at its NE corner. There are four entrances at the Cardinal points. (2) The monument includes parts of the E ramparts outside the E walls where the main walls have been shown by excavation to be Medieval, the outer ramparts may be the remains of Iron Age defences. This outer defence is approximately 30ft wide and does not exceed 2 ft in height. Hutchins wrote of ramparts outside the E and W walls. (3) Drew excavated a sewer trench at the NW corner and showed the ditch had silted to 12ft, so the ditch was 20ft deep from the original ground level. The Royal commission excavated four trenches through the W walls in 1952-4. They found late Iron Age and Roman material sealed by a rampart over 9ft high and 47 ft wide added to later with a 4ft thick layer of loam and a stone wall 7ft wide with a 15ft wide footpath behind it. The wall was then robbed out, the ditch dug to 18ft and some of this material was dumped on the rampart. (4)

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1953, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1952, 93-94 (Serial). SDO52.

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1956, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1954, 86 (Serial). SDO54.

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1957, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1956, 77-79 (Serial). SDO56.

Taylor, C, 1963, Observation of a Pipe-Trench Along Wareham West Walls (Article in serial). SDO11565.

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1964, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1963, 98 (Serial). SDO63.

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 3, 323-324 (Monograph). SDO150.

'(79) TOWN DEFENCES (Plate 172). Wareham is mentioned in 876 in the account of the war between King Alfred and the Danes. The vernacular version in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that: 'In this year the enemy army slipped past the army of the West Saxons into Wareham.' It goes on to record how Alfred made peace with the Danes, exacting hostages and oaths, and how under cover of the negotiations the mounted men stole away by night to Exeter (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (1961), sub anno). Aethelweard in the Latin version adds some details; he states that the Danes came from Cambridge and joined forces with the western army near the town ('iuxta oppidum') called Wareham and that they devastated the great part of the province (H. Petrie, Monumenta historica britannica, I, 515). Asser's account states that the Danes entered into the strong place ('castellum'), which is called Wareham. He adds a number of local details, doubtless from personal observation, for Wareham was an important church in his diocese of Sherborne. Asser became bishop of Sherborne not earlier than 892 and wrote his life of King Alfred after that date. His description may reflect the conditions of his own day and his use of the word 'castellum' need not therefore prove the existence of defences in 876 (Asser, De rebus gestis Regis Aelfredi, ed. W. H. Stevenson (1959 imp.), cap. 49). Wareham is included in the list of fortresses defending the frontiers of Wessex known as the Burghal Hidage. This list, which was drawn up under Edward the Elder and probably between 910 and 919, represents the full development of the system established by King Alfred and his successor; there is good reason to believe that its outline was laid down by King Alfred in the years preceding the Danish invasion of 892. In the Burghal Hidage 1600 hides are allocated to the maintenance and defence of Wareham, sufficient according to the annexed document to support ramparts measuring 2200 yards, a figure which approximates very closely to the length of the banks enclosing the town on the W., N. and E. sides (A. J. Robertson, Anglo Saxon Charters (1939), 246–9).
The site of Wareham is an almost level terrace of river gravel over Bagshot Beds, between about 10 ft. and 38 ft. above O.D., at the place where the rivers Piddle and Frome come closest together before diverging to enter Poole Harbour 1¼ miles E. The town covers a roughly square area of about 91 acres. The earthwork defences surrounding it on the N., E. and W. sides are known as the 'Walls'; the S. side is bounded by the river Frome. The West Walls were scarped against attack by tanks in 1940.
Excavation, observations, and chance finds provide evidence of Iron Age occupation on the site and more widespread evidence of Roman settlement (see Part 3, p. 614). A stone fragment of a large Classical architrave reused for a 7th-century inscription (see Monument (1), under Fittings, Inscriptions: No. i), may imply at least one stone building of especial architectural distinction here in the Roman period.
In 1952–4, the Commission conducted excavations on the West Walls (Med. Arch. III (1959), 120–38). The defences were judged to date from the reign of King Alfred, with the addition of a stone wall in the late 10th or 11th century and the recutting of the ditch in the 12th century.
The town had four main entrances more or less central in the sides, taking roads roughly E.–W. and N.–S. through the defences. Widening has destroyed any remains of the original arrangements, though where North Street now runs up a steep cutting with incurving scarps on either side Hutchins saw 'two very large bastions' (Hutchins I, 77–80, 94–5). A gap in the N. side between this cutting and the N.W. angle is probably later; so too are other gaps in the defences on the E. and W. at the ends of lanes.
On the W. the line of the defences, which commences at the bank of the Frome and runs N.W. for 585 yds., is notably straighter than elsewhere. Apart from a rough mound just S. of West Street and slight traces suggesting a flattened rampart 100 yds. S. of it, only a ditch 50 ft. to 70 ft. wide and 13 ft. deep survives in the S. part. The suggestion of a counterscarp bank commencing 50 yds. from the S. end of this side is probably due to the scarping of the irregular edge of the river terrace by later tracks, one of which runs into the ditch at this point. N. of West Street the rampart survives but the ditch is only traceable towards the N.W. corner, though no doubt it continued S. for the whole length before the present parallel road was constructed. The N. part of the ditch had been partly dug into a gully dropping N. through the natural scarp above the river Piddle (Plate 172). The upper part of the rampart has been thrown into the ditch for a distance of 160 yds. N. of West Street and the internal height of about 15 ft. thereby reduced to 12 ft. Where the rampart is best preserved it is 12 ft. high above the interior and 26 ft. above the bottom of the ditch, this last being 55 ft. wide. About 30 ft. W. of the ditch a scarp rises steeply W. Only the slightest fall is now detectable beyond it and this feature is mostly natural in origin; it may be this that Hutchins described as an 'outer rampart much defaced'.
In the Commission's excavations the rampart and ditch were sectioned completely in one place; the rampart alone was sectioned in two others and tested at a fourth point (for positions, see Fig. p. 323). Late Iron Age storage pits and Roman occupation material, including New Forest wares of the late 3rd or 4th century, were sealed by a rampart over 9 ft. high and 47 ft. wide, perhaps revetted externally with timber (later scarping had removed the face, but P.S., see Pt. 1, p. lxx). It consisted mostly of sand and gravel apparently coming from an external ditch, of which all traces had been removed by later recutting. The black earth containing occupation material which comprised the upper layers seemed to have been derived from behind the rampart where a depression indicating some quarrying was visible in the section. This had already been suggested by observations of a pipe trench cut c. 1930 just to the N. of the Commission excavation (C. D. Drew, Dorset Procs. LII (1930), lxxxvii-viii), but an observer of a nearby pipe trench cut in 1953 noted that there was no internal quarrying at that point (R. A. H. Farrar, Dorset Procs. LXXVIII (1956), 77–8). After some time had elapsed a layer of river loam 4 ft. thick was added to the rear of the rampart and a stone wall was erected on the crest. The latter had a mortar raft to support footings at least 7 ft. wide, and a footpath of sand and clay 15 ft. wide ran behind it. A mortar flange waterproofed the outer edges of the wall footing. Subsequently the wall was thoroughly robbed down to its foundations, a flat-bottomed ditch was dug 30 ft. wide and 18 ft. deep, and some of the material from it dumped on top of the rampart.
At the N.W. corner of the defences the rampart is 15 ft. high measured from the inside. The natural surface tilts W. to the gully already mentioned but the rampart was built up to the same height as elsewhere. Externally it drops 19 ft. to a shelf where there are traces of damaged scarps described by Warne as 'platforms with low breastworks' (C. Warne, Ancient Dorset (1872), 86). There is a suggestion of quarrying on the inside but no sign of an external ditch,
The N. rampart of the town, 670 yds. long, follows an irregular line along the scarp; there was presumably no ditch on this side, but a natural ledge is visible at the junction of the rampart and the river terrace. Where best preserved the rampart is 64 ft. wide, set 30 ft. to 40 ft. above the river Piddle and 12 ft. high above the interior. The N.E. corner is again massive with damaged scarps below it.
The E. rampart of the town, 760 yds. long, in four straight alignments, has an interior height of about 8 ft. and a width of 60 ft. The southern 120 yds. have been virtually destroyed. An excavation in c. 1910 revealed evidence suggestive of a stone wall within the rampart (Drew, loc. cit.). A road at the foot of the scarp has largely obscured the ditch. A low broad bank, with a ditch to the E., can be traced some 20 yds E. of the E. rampart for three-quarters of its length (in Wareham St. Martin parish). Since it is not precisely parallel to the main defences and has been almost completely levelled, and since evidence for its date is lacking, its relation to other remains is uncertain. On the N. it first appears on the edge of marshy ground. The best preserved remains can be seen just N. of the edge of the river terrace as a spread bank 80 ft. across, 2 ft. high inside and still 3¼ ft. above the ditch bottom, with a broken-down counterscarp a further 45 ft. to the E.
There is no trace of defences on the S. side of the town where it borders the river Frome. (R.A.F. V.A.P. CPE/UK 1821: 6402–4.)'

Steinmetzer, M F R, 2020, Archaeological monitoring and recording at Dairy Cottage, Wareham, Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO16940.

<1> Farrar R A H ed, 1952, The Excavation of Wareham Town Walls, p93-94 (Article in serial). SWX8722.

<1> Ladle, L, 1994, Watching Brief Undertaken at East Walls, Wareham during water-main works (Unpublished document). SWX8518.

<2> Farrar R A H ed, 1954, The Excavation of Wareham Town Walls, 1954, p86 (Article in serial). SWX8724.

<3> Shipp, W, and Hodson, J W (eds), 1861, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. 3rd edition. Volume 1, pp77-80, 94-5 (Monograph). SWX4496.

<3> Farrar R A H ed, 1956, Some recent cuttings through Wareham Walls and the Dyke on Wareham Common, p77-79 (Article in serial). SWX8721.

<4> RCHM, 1959, Wareham West Walls, p120-38 (Article in serial). SWX8720.

Record last edited

Aug 19 2021 2:12PM