Iwerne Minster ( ) is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England. It lies on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, 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. Toponymy The village takes its name from the River Iwerne. "Iwerne" may have been the name of a Celtic goddess or may be a reference to yew trees growing on its banks. The "Minster" part of the name is a reference to the ownership of the settlement by Shaftesbury Abbey. History 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 long, wide and had flint footings 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 long and 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. In the Domesday Book in 1086 the village was recorded as Euneministre (or Euneminstre). It was in Sixpenny Hundred and the lord and tenant-in-chief was Shaftesbury Abbey. The early settlements in the parish—Iwerne and Preston—were sited by the River Iwerne. There may have been a third settlement contemporary with these, called Hulle. Pegg's Farm in the northwest of the parish is probably a secondary settlement; it was in existence by the early 14th century, though the present buildings are mostly 18th-century. The parish church, dedicated to