Shepton Mallet (High Street) was a railway station on the

East Somerset Railway The East Somerset Railway is a heritage railway in Somerset, running between Cranmore and Mendip Vale. Prior to the Beeching Axe, the railway was once part of the former Cheddar Valley line that ran from Witham to Yatton, meeting the Somer ...

, serving the town of Shepton Mallet in the English county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. The station opened in 1858 as the interim western terminus of the line from the

Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dors ...

at Witham (Somerset). In 1862, the East Somerset line was extended westwards to Wells and in 1878 a junction was made in Wells with the

Cheddar Valley Railway Cheddar most often refers to either: *Cheddar cheese *Cheddar, Somerset, the village after which Cheddar cheese is named Cheddar may also refer to: Places * Cheddar, Ontario, Canada * Cheddar Yeo, a river which flows through Cheddar Gorge and t ...

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 Clav ...

. By this time the line had been taken over entirely by the Great Western Railway. 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 era from the town's other station on the unconnected

Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreech ...

. 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 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

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