Local Heroes - Iwerne Minster Stores

Above: Don and Caroline Hollman of Iwerne Minster Stores

Above: ...with a selection of their fresh fruit and vegetables

by Michel Hooper-Immins

What does a national award-winning village shop look like? Well, if you’re around the lovely village of Iwerne Minster, between Blandford and Shaftesbury, you’ll be able to find out. 

In this tranquil setting, Don and Caroline Hollman beat hundreds of fellow shopkeepers to lift the second spot in the UK competition run by the Independent Achievers Academy. Invited to the Waldorf Hilton in London with 36 other finalists, they were thrilled to hear Iwerne Minster Stores crowned with the national runners-up award.

The judges were looking for positivity, drive, creative spirit, entrepreneurship and customer focus. They found all that and more at this remarkable Dorset village shop. And so did I. At once, I was struck by the welcome, the smiles and the remarkable ambience. This is not a place where wholesalers’ boxes are tipped onto shelves – there’s eye-catching colour and pleasing symmetry about all the displays. The amazing display of fresh fruit and veg looks like a Monet painting, perfectly laid out with brilliant reds, yellows, greens and oranges.


Passionate about produce...

The enthusiastic couple who run this very superior shop are passionate about the food they sell – evident from their easy manner. As we chatted, a steady stream of customers came and went. With Iwerne Minster mustering only 889 souls at the 2001 census, they have to have come from many miles around, and I can see why.

Don is every inch the traditional grocer in his brown smock. Born at Westerham in Kent, he trained with Fine Fare and Safeway supermarkets before coming to Poole to join Millers at Sterte. I remember Millers’ wonderfully meaty steak-and-kidney pies – what a tragedy when they were taken over. Don eventually became Regional Sales Manager. After 12 years at Millers, he moved around several food companies, before being headhunted to look after Ainsley Harriott’s celebrity products.

It was whilst living in Maidstone that, one evening, Don noticed his neighbour Caroline had left her car lights on. He went to tell her about it, and from this kindness, they got together and married in 2001. The couple have four children between them – Adam, a commercial solicitor, Daniel, a Tesco manager, James, who’s been accepted for the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton, and the youngest, Tom, who is a school swimming champion. The youngest two help in the shop when they can.


Royal linen...

Caroline was apprenticed in soft furnishings, and then went looking for a job at Sandringham House. She didn’t get it, but was offered the position of housemaid in the linen room at Buckingham Palace! For four years, from 1980, she looked after the royal linen, meeting some members of the Royal Family every day. Making a ball gown for Sarah Armstrong-Jones – daughter of Princess Margaret – was one of many highlights. ‘They were exciting times,’ lively Caroline recalls. ‘I remember Diana’s wedding and how we used to dance with the royals at the Balmoral Ghillies Ball.’
After the palace, Caroline worked for the American Ambassador at Regent’s Park, then with the prestigious Laura Ashley company. When she met Don that fateful evening, Caroline was running her own firm making curtains.

Seeking a new life together, Don and Caroline searched for a business that could grow. Don fancied South Wales, Caroline favoured Norfolk. Then they arrived in picturesque Iwerne Minster, immediately realising the Stores there had potential. They returned four more times, finding it busy throughout the day. ‘It’s a pretty village and an affluent area,’ says Caroline. They took over in July 2005. In the village since the18th century, the shop had once been a haberdashery. Last spring they closed for three weeks to completely refurbish the interior. Out went the ugly metal fittings and in came the warm wooden shelving and counter. The vital rural post office is now an integral part of the shop, many customers being connected with nearby Clayesmore School – mainstay of the village.

‘We stock lines that customers can’t buy from Tesco,’ Don tells me. In the deli cabinet are ‘yellow bells’ – butternut-squash slices with cream cheese – as well as rollmop herrings, somewhat of a rare sight in a British shop. Black pudding comes from Yorkshire, butter from Shepton Mallet, and Mrs Macks organic poppy-seed dressing from Semley, just a couple of miles from Shaftesbury. And what I had never seen before was traffic-light jam – three layers comprising strawberry, apricot and gooseberry! Around the corner I found essential non-food items such as baby oil, hairspray, polish and cleaning fluids.


Tea, coffee and hot chocolate...

Behind the counter is a wooden cask of Ostlers Mill dry cider from Devon, poured directly into traditional stoppered bottles. Miles’ noted teas, coffee and hot chocolate from Porlock are always popular, and coffee beans are ground on demand.

At the back of this compact shop, the little café serves several different types of coffee and tea, as well as Danish pastries, filled baguettes and soup – delicious tomato and basil the day I was visiting.

The local authority refuses to allow a road sign pointing to the shop, 20 yards off the busy A350. North Dorset councillors should support village shops, but won’t allow a sign. That can’t be good for passing trade, as it is tucked behind the other award winner in the village – the Talbot, which was the runner-up in Dorset magazine’s Dining Pub of the Year category in its 2007 Food & Drink Awards. Fortunately, locals from miles around know the stores at Iwerne Minster.

Don’t tell my friends at Dorset Blue Vinny, but I couldn’t resist a wedge of blue Stilton whilst on my visit to the Stores. I watched Caroline carefully wrap it in waxed cheese paper, surely a sign of quality and certainly another signal that their several awards are well deserved – and culminating in the coveted title of Number Two grocer in all the UK. It’s worth mentioning the winner was in Castle Cary – a good year for the West Country.

Make sure you visit the Iwerne Minster Stores soon, to congratulate Don and Caroline on their achievement in bringing this award to Dorset.

Iwerne Minster Stores, at Post Office Road, Iwerne Minister DT11 8LW, is open from 7.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, and from 7.30am to 1pm on Saturday. Tel: 01747 811202.