WINTERBOURNE (ST-MARTIN), a parish in
the hundred of GEORGE, Dorchester division of the
county of DORSET, 3 miles (W. S. W.) from Dorchester,
containing 342 inhabitants. The living is a discharged
vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Dorset, and diocese of
Bristol, rated in the king's books at £9. 15., and in
the patronage of the Bishop of Salisbury. The church
has a neat embattled tower crowned with pinnacles,
A market, granted by Henry III, was formerly held
here; and a fair is still kept on St. Martin's day. In
this parish is Maiden Castle, one of the strongest and
most extensive Roman camps in the west of England,
which, according to Ptolemy, was the castra astiva
of the garrison of Dunium, afterwards called Durnovaria,
the capital of the Durotriges: it consists of
a treble ditch and rampart, enclosing an irregular
oval area of forty-four acres, but the entire work covers
an extent of one hundred and fifteen acres and a
half. There are two very intricate entrances, that at
the east end being defended by five, and that at the
west end by six, ditches and ramparts. Near the
former passes the vicinal road leading from Dorchester
to Weymouth, and to the latter extends a branch from
the Via Iceniana, which passes about a mile north of
the camp. The summit commands an extensive prospect
of barrows stretching for many miles along the
tops of the hills to the southward.