Bed and breakfast availability
Wareham b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Wareham and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Wareham, Dorset. This tidy, quietly attractive small town, like Blandford Forum, had a great fire (1762), and is, as a result, similarly, though less grandly, Georgian red-brick, but of ancient origin and turbulent beginnings. Well-sited on a low ridge between the rivers Frome and Piddle, it was an important Anglo-Saxon town and river port, protected by massive earthen ramparts. During the troubled period from the 9^th to 11^th century it frequently took the brunt of Danish invasion, and suffered further ravage from various parties in the Stephen-Matilda wars of the mid-l2^th century.

The walls survive as a bank best seen on the west side of the town. St Martin's Church, mainly Anglo-Saxon, c. 1030, the oldest church extant in Dorset, stands actually on it to the North, and contains Eric Kennington's effigy of T. E. Lawrence (1939). Between it and the town centre a small museum contains T. E. Lawrence relics, including photographs. The town's other, and principal, church, Lady St Mary's, North East of the quay, is also worth visiting. It was mainly rebuilt in 1842, but is very pleasant inside with much medieval detail, including a lead-bowled font, c. 1200, said to be unique, two exceptional 13^th-century effigies of knights in armour, and, off the chancel, a fine vaulted chapel. It stands where a priory is thought to have once stood, and the Tudor house just South of it is called the Priory of Lady St Mary. Its gardens are sometimes open.

South East for some 7 miles to Studland is mainly heath, with heather, birch scrub and young conifer forest, much of it nature reserve. Across this, Arne, about 3½ miles East by road, is an ash-tree shaded hamlet from which you can walk for about 1 mile to the shore of Poole Harbour. The drive South West from here to Corfe Castle gives a tremendous view of the ruined castle.

One mile South East of Wareham, Ridge was once a busy river port, possibly where King Alfred built his fleet to fight the Danes.

Nearby towns: Blandford Forum, Corfe Castle, Dorchester, Poole, Swanage

Nearby villages: Almer, Arne, Bere Regis, Bloxworth, Bovington Camp, Broadstone, Canford Magna, Corfe Mullen, East Lulworth, East Stoke, Hamworthy, Holton Heath, Kimmeridge, Langton Matravers, Lulworth Camp, Lytchett Matravers, Lytchett Minster, Morden, Parkstone, Poole, Stoborough, Studland, Sturminster Marshall, Turners Puddle, Tyneham, Ulwell, West Lulworth, Winfrith Newburgh, Winterborne Kingston, Wool, Worth

Have you decided to visit Wareham or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Wareham bed and breakfast (a Wareham B&B or Wareham b and b)
• a Wareham guesthouse
• a Wareham hotel (or motel)
• a Wareham self-catering establishment, or
• other Wareham accommodation