| Iwerne | |||||||||||||||
| Iwerne is the name of the River which
flows south into the Stour and gives its name to the Iwernes, Iwerne
Minster, Iwerne Stapleton and Iwerne Courtney, the pronunciation of
Iwerne is as 'you earn' and the name is derived from Ivo (yew) and
broc(stream), which later was changed to Iwern Brock or Iwerne Brook at
the time of the Saxons.
Iwerne Minster is recorded as Evneminstre in the Domesday Survey of 1086 but its first appearance is in a Saxon charter dated 871AD where it is ywern or hywerna, the affix is Old English mynster '(church of) a monastery' and this seems to refer to the fact that Shaftesbury Abbey owned it in middle of the 10th century. Its church is one of a few in Dorset that has a stone steeple and when the victorians did their restoration they shortened it to half of its original size. Hambledon is above Iwerene Courtney which has the more commonly used name of Shorton and Steepleton Iwerene is in the shadows of Hod Hill. There is a manor house here that was turned into a school and there is a lot of ancient thatch stil around and under a wooden shelter is the village pump. Iwerne was the home of calligraphist John Willis in the 18th century and he made his fortune here teaching people from all four corners of the world the art of copper plate writing
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