The steam railway has ambitions to extend its service, currently from Swanage to Norden, near Corfe Castle back to Worgret Junction (where the mainline and branch divided) and into Wareham again.

To the north west of the town a large conifer plantation, Wareham Forest stretches several miles to the A35 road and the southern foothills of the Dorset Downs.

To the south east is Corfe Castle and the heathland that borders Poole Harbour, including Wytch Farm oil field and Studland & Godlingstone Heath Nature Reserve.

[2] The Roman name is unknown, but the town is referred to as Werham in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry of 784, from Old English wer (meaning 'fish trap, a weir') and hām ('homestead') or hamm ('enclosure hemmed in by water').

His remains had been hastily buried there and were later taken from Wareham to Shaftesbury Abbey in north Dorset (and now lie in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey).

By the end of the Saxon period, Wareham had become one of the most important towns in the county, to the extent that it housed two mints for the issue of Royal money.

[4] During the Norman conquest of England, in late 1067, William I harried the town as his army passed into the west to lay siege to Exeter.

[7][12] During the English Civil War, Wareham changed hands several times between the Royalists and Parliamentarians and in August 1644 was the site of a fierce battle with 2,000 Cromwellian soldiers besieging the town.

[13] After the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, Wareham was one of a number of towns in Dorset where Judge Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes, with five rebels being hanged, drawn and quartered on the West Walls, an area known as 'Bloody Bank'.

[14][15] This may also have been the site of the execution of a hermit known as Peter de Pomfret who in 1213 had prophesied that before the next Ascension Day King John's rule would be over.

The prophecy turned out to be incorrect, and the King decreed that Peter should be dragged through the streets of the town tied to a horse's tail and hanged together with his son.

[14] In 1762, a fire destroyed two thirds of the town, which has been rebuilt in Georgian architecture with red brick and Purbeck limestone, following the earlier street pattern.

[16] The town survived the Second World War largely intact, although five houses were destroyed when a bomb dropped by a German aeroplane fell near St Martin's Church in 1942.

Wareham's oldest places of worship include the Saxon church of Lady St. Mary (substantially modified but the origins are pre-conquest.

The 14th-century building of Holy Trinity Church stands on the site of the Saxon chapel St Andrew's[5] and was until 2012 a tourist information centre.

[23] Events held in the town include the annual carnival which takes place in July with a parade, fireworks and music by the Quay.

The squadron's cadets regularly partake in activities around the town for charitable purposes such as supporting the carnival, training exercises and parades.

Some scenes from the 2002 German ZDF TV production Morgen Träumen Wir Gemeinsam ("Tomorrow We Dream Together") were filmed in Wareham.

Three other significant areas of employment are: wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles (13.5%), real estate renting and business activities (12.2%) and health and social work (10.5%).