Despite the grim weather, today's trip was to Wareham in Dorset to see the early medieval defences there. The earthworks don't photograph esp. well, but the most impressive element is their sheer size. This is the ditch on the west side.

The earthwork banks survive up to 3 metres in many places, as here on the west side, where the cars provide some comparison. The car park lies at the bottom of what would once have been the ditch

The defences are esp. large on the northern side, looking down on the River Piddle. Their age is hard to work out, but their existence is implied in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 876, when the Viking army sheltered here.

The whole encloses a rough square, with embankments on three sides, the fourth side made up by the River Frome on the south side.

There's a fine pre-Conquest church, St Martin's on the Walls, set on the northern embankments where the main road enters. Sadly, it was closed today, so only the exterior could be inspected.

'Long and short work' can be seen on the north side, next to the boarded-up window, and maybe an early opening on the south porch. Clearly it's been much altered over time.

There's nothing much to see of the castle site in the south-western corner of the old town. There are some remains of a motte, though on private land and not readily visible; there is some ?re-set masonry on Pound Lane that may be 12th-century.

There are other churches; the disused and late Holy Trinity, which might be the southern defence's parallel to St Martin's on the north side, and St Mary's, once a Benedictine priory dependent on Lyre Abbey, Normandy, prob. an older minster.