The old church with its pinnacled tower was restored so carefully that
its ancient character has to a large extent been retained. The church
was originally Norman, but several additions of varying dates have
been made to it. As the church is entered, two fifteenth-century
coffin lids will be noticed in the porch. Within is a brass to a
former vicar (1581) and a slab to Lady Arundel of Nevice. The memorial
to King Alfred was presented to the church a few years ago by R.C.
Jackson, the antiquary, to commemorate the supposed connexion of this
Stour Minster with the great king.

Passing Bailey Gate, which is the station for Sturminster, the Poole
road is reached in a few minutes; turning left and following this for
a mile, the pedestrian may take a rough track uphill to the right that
leads to Lytchett Matravers, an out-of-the-way village with a
Perpendicular church and an unpretending inn. Two miles to the
south-east on the Poole-Wareham road is Lytchett Minster, remarkable
for the extraordinary sign of its inn, the "St. Peter's Finger." This
has been explained by Sir Bertram Windle as a corruption of St. Peter
ad Vincula. The inn unconsciously perpetuates the name of an old
system of land tenure, Lammas-day (in the Roman calendar St. Peter ad
Vincula) being one of the days on which service was done as a
condition of holding the land. The pictured sign itself, however, is
very literal in its rendering of the name. One of the finest views
obtainable of Poole and its surroundings is from Lytchett Beacon, and
in the opposite direction, the tower in Charborough Park is a
conspicuous landmark.

The direct road from Lytchett Matravers goes by Sleeping Green (we are
approaching the land of queer names) and reaches Wareham in five miles
after passing over the lonely Holton Heath, an outlier of the Great
Heath of Dorset, that wide stretch of moorland that Mr. Hardy has made
world-famous under the general appellation of "Egdon Heath."

Wareham, pleasant and ancient, is, after the capital, the most
interesting inland town in Dorset. Its position between the rivers
Frome and Puddle, that unite just before reaching Poole Harbour, was
of value as a strategical point and from very early times, possibly
prehistoric, the town was strongly fortified by its famous "walls" or
earth embankments that enclose to-day a much greater area than the
town itself.

Roman antiquities have been found of such a character as to prove its
importance a