diff --git a/docs/iris/src/userguide/subsetting_a_cube.rst b/docs/iris/src/userguide/subsetting_a_cube.rst
index b61f16a043..5864de531a 100644
--- a/docs/iris/src/userguide/subsetting_a_cube.rst
+++ b/docs/iris/src/userguide/subsetting_a_cube.rst
@@ -103,6 +103,9 @@ same way as loading with constraints:
 
 Cube iteration
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+It is not possible to directly iterate over an Iris cube. That is, you cannot use code such as
+``for x in cube:``. However, you can iterate over cube slices, as this section details.
+
 A useful way of dealing with a Cube in its **entirety** is by iterating over its layers or slices.
 For example, to deal with a 3 dimensional cube (z,y,x) you could iterate over all 2 dimensional slices in y and x
 which make up the full 3d cube.::
diff --git a/docs/iris/src/whatsnew/contributions_3.0.0/bugfix_2020-Feb-13_cube_iter_remove.txt b/docs/iris/src/whatsnew/contributions_3.0.0/bugfix_2020-Feb-13_cube_iter_remove.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..082cd8acc8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/iris/src/whatsnew/contributions_3.0.0/bugfix_2020-Feb-13_cube_iter_remove.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* The `__iter__()` method in class:`iris.cube.Cube` was set to `None`.
+  `TypeError` is still raised if a `Cube` is iterated over but
+  `isinstance(cube, collections.Iterable)` now behaves as expected.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/lib/iris/cube.py b/lib/iris/cube.py
index a246b97e1c..0fc381725d 100644
--- a/lib/iris/cube.py
+++ b/lib/iris/cube.py
@@ -2622,8 +2622,9 @@ def _repr_html_(self):
         representer = CubeRepresentation(self)
         return representer.repr_html()
 
-    def __iter__(self):
-        raise TypeError("Cube is not iterable")
+    # Indicate that the iter option is not available. Python will raise
+    # TypeError with a useful message if a Cube is iterated over.
+    __iter__ = None
 
     def __getitem__(self, keys):
         """
diff --git a/lib/iris/tests/test_cdm.py b/lib/iris/tests/test_cdm.py
index 2c006e0e4f..ab27ad6040 100644
--- a/lib/iris/tests/test_cdm.py
+++ b/lib/iris/tests/test_cdm.py
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 # import iris tests first so that some things can be initialised before importing anything else
 import iris.tests as tests
 
+import collections
 import os
 import re
 
@@ -690,6 +691,9 @@ def test_cube_iteration(self):
             for subcube in self.t:
                 pass
 
+    def test_not_iterable(self):
+        self.assertFalse(isinstance(self.t, collections.Iterable))
+
 
 class Test2dSlicing(TestCube2d):
     def test_cube_slice_all_dimensions(self):
diff --git a/lib/iris/tests/unit/cube/test_CubeList.py b/lib/iris/tests/unit/cube/test_CubeList.py
index 2e0fb2d12d..6870e2367f 100644
--- a/lib/iris/tests/unit/cube/test_CubeList.py
+++ b/lib/iris/tests/unit/cube/test_CubeList.py
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@
 
 # Import iris.tests first so that some things can be initialised before
 # importing anything else.
+import collections
+
 import iris.tests as tests
 import iris.tests.stock
 
@@ -292,6 +294,22 @@ def test_scalar_cube_data_constraint(self):
         self.assertEqual(res, expected)
 
 
+class Test_iteration(tests.IrisTest):
+    def setUp(self):
+        self.scalar_cubes = CubeList()
+        for i in range(5):
+            for letter in "abcd":
+                self.scalar_cubes.append(Cube(i, long_name=letter))
+
+    def test_iterable(self):
+        self.assertTrue(isinstance(self.scalar_cubes, collections.Iterable))
+
+    def test_iteration(self):
+        letters = "abcd" * 5
+        for i, cube in enumerate(self.scalar_cubes):
+            self.assertEqual(cube.long_name, letters[i])
+
+
 class TestPrint(tests.IrisTest):
     def setUp(self):
         self.cubes = CubeList([iris.tests.stock.lat_lon_cube()])