Iwerne camps

The Iwerne camps (/ˈjuːɜːrn/ YOO-ern) were British evangelical Christian holiday camps aimed at children from UK public schools. They were officially the Varsity and Public Schools (VPS) holidays and later Iwerne and Forres Holidays, and were commonly known as Bash camps.

E. J. H. Nash ("Bash") ran his first holidays in 1930, and from around 1940 these were hosted at Clayesmore School in Iwerne Minster, Dorset. The original camps were aimed at boys from the 'top thirty' public schools (i.e. elite private boarding schools). They promoted "muscular Christianity" and conservative evangelical theology, aiming to equip attendees to become Christian leaders in the Church of England. Later camps were held in other venues and aimed at girls and boys from lower-ranking private schools. The camps were influential in the British post-war evangelical resurgence, with attendees including theologian John Stott, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, bishops David Sheppard, Timothy Dudley-Smith and Maurice Wood and Alpha course founder Nicky Gumbel.

From 1932 until 2000 the holidays were nominally run under the auspices of Scripture Union, but in practice ran independently, with funding from the Iwerne Trust. In 1997, in a move to regularise oversight of the holidays, the Iwerne Trust was succeeded by the Titus Trust, which in 2000 fully took over formal responsibility for the holidays from Scripture Union. In the early 2000s the holidays moved from Iwerne Minster to Gresham's School in Norfolk, but retained the Iwerne name. In later years they were grouped with the Forres holidays for younger (prep school age) children.

In 2017, information emerged about abuse carried out in the 1970s and 1980s by Iwerne Trust chairman John Smyth against boys from the camps, with Titus Trust reaching a settlement with survivors in 2020. Further allegations followed of abuse by another Iwerne leader, Jonathan Fletcher. In 2020, the Titus Trust announced that it would cease to run holidays under the Iwerne name. The trust continues to run related holidays under its other brands. In February 2025, a Channel 4 investigation reported allegations of sexual assault and harassment of girls and women by David Fletcher, leader of Iwerne and Titus Trust trustee.