Shepton Mallet (High Street) was a railway station on the East Somerset Railway, serving the town of

Shepton Mallet Shepton Mallet is a market town and civil parish in the Mendip District of Somerset, England, some south-west of Bath, south of Bristol and east of Wells. It had an estimated population of 10,810 in 2019. Mendip District Council is based t ...

in the English county of Somerset. The station opened in 1858 as the interim western terminus of the line from the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway at Witham (Somerset). In 1862, the East Somerset line was extended westwards to

Wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...

and in 1878 a junction was made in Wells with the Cheddar Valley Railway that enabled through running between Witham and

Yatton Yatton is a village and civil parish within the unitary authority of North Somerset, which falls within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located south-west of Bristol. Its population in 2011 was 7,552. The parish includes Clave ...

. By this time the line had been taken over entirely by the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

. For most of its life, the station was known simply as "Shepton Mallet", the larger title coming into use in 1949 to differentiate the station in the

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

era from the town's other station on the unconnected Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The S&DJR station, less conveniently situated for the town centre, had been known as Shepton Mallet (Charlton Road) since 1883. Due to the reviews of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

, the station closed to passenger traffic with the withdrawal of services between Yatton and Witham on 9 September 1963. Goods traffic ceased within a year, though goods trains continued to pass through until 1969 with stone from a nearby quarry. The station building survived as a depot for a cleaning company for some years. After it was decided to clear the site for redevelopment, the station building was dismantled in 2008 for use by the East Somerset Railway for a planned new station at Shepton Mallet.

References

* ''Somerset Railway Stations'', Mike Oakley, Dovecote Press, Wimborne, 2002. Disused railway stations in Somerset Former Great Western Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1858 Railway stations in Great Britain closed in 1963 Shepton Mallet Beeching closures in England {{SouthWestEngland-railstation-stub