Iwerne Minster
| Iwerne Minster | |
|---|---|
 Parish church of St Mary |
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 Iwerne Minster
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| Iwerne Minster shown within Dorset | |
| Population | 978 |
| OS grid reference | ST865143 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Blandford |
| Postcode district | DT11 |
| Dialling code | 01747 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Iwerne Minster (pronunciation: /ˈjuːɜːrn/) is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It lies on the edge of the Blackmore Vale in the North Dorset administrative district, approximately midway between the towns of Shaftesbury and Blandford Forum. The A350 main road between those towns passes through the edge of the village, just to the west. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 978.
Evidence of prehistoric human activity in the parish consists of five round barrows on the chalk escarpment in the east, and the site of an Iron Age settlement in the southwest, near Park Farm. The settlement, which takes the form of several pits, was excavated by General Pitt-Rivers in 1897; finds included a bronze brooch and silver coins.
In the early Roman period the Iron Age site was altered with the construction of ditches and sub-rectangular pits; finds included 1st and 2nd-century samian pottery and Roman coins dating from the period between Vespasian and Commodus. In the 3rd century a building, possibly an aisled barn, was constructed on the western half of the site; it was 34 metres (112 ft) long, 12 metres (39 ft) wide and had flint footings 0.9 metres (3.0 ft) wide. More Roman coins were found here, dating from the period between Gordian I and Tacitus. Around 300 AD a substantial building was constructed on the eastern half of the site; it was 38.3 metres (126 ft) long and 5.5 metres (18 ft) wide and divided into four rooms, with a granary built against one external wall and a corridor or outbuildings against another. One of the rooms had plaster walls and a floor made of shale from Kimmeridge. The building was occupied for about sixty years.
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