page_title: Shepton Mallet
section_title: Town areas
hierarchical_section_title: Shepton Mallet / Geography / Town areas
caption_attribution_description: English: Kilver Court Gardens, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, UK
context_page_description: Shepton Mallet is an English town and civil parish in the Mendip District of Somerset, about 16 miles south-west of Bath, 18 miles south of Bristol and 5 miles east of Wells, with an estimated population of 10,369 in 2014. Mendip District Council is based there. The Mendip Hills lie to the north and the River Sheppey runs through the town, as does the route of the Fosse Way, the main Roman road into south-west England. There is evidence of Roman settlement. Its medieval parish church is among many listed buildings. Shepton Mallet Prison was England's oldest until it closed in March 2013. The medieval wool trade gave way to industries such as brewing in the 18th century. The town remains noted for cider production. Shepton Mallet is the closest town to the Glastonbury Festival. Also nearby is the Royal Bath and West of England Society showground.
context_section_description: Shepton Mallet has several distinct areas that originated as separate communities around the central point of the church and Market Place. The town centre basically consists of two streets: High Street, running south from the Market Place towards the Townsend Retail Park, and the pedestrianised Town Street running north to Waterloo Bridge. To the east, separated from the Market Place by the Academy complex, is the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. Lower Lane, which runs under Waterloo Bridge along the bottom of the river valley to the north of the town centre, is one of the few parts of the town where the River Sheppey runs above ground. At the eastern end is Leg Square, which is surrounded by three large houses originally built by owners of some of the town's mills. Close by is Cornhill, on which the former prison stands.
  Roughly eastwards, Garston Street, also in the valley-bottom, consists of a row of weavers' and other artisans' cottages dating from the 17th century. The eastern end of the area, adjacent to Kilver Street, is now occupied by cider breweries. Across Kilver Street (the A37) is Kilver Court, which during the 20th century was a factory, headquarters of a brewing business, and then headquarters of a leather-goods manufacturer. Behind are the Kilver Court Gardens, originally built by Showerings for the recreation of its staff and set against a backdrop of part of the Charlton Viaduct. The gardens are now open to the public. On the eastern edge of the town is Charlton where there are former breweries and mills, now converted into a trading estate, and right on the edge of the town is Charlton House, a luxury hotel and spa.
  On the south side of the town is a triangle of land bounded on the east by the A37, on the north by the line of the former East Somerset Railway, and on the west by Cannard's Grave Road: Tadley Acres is a modern housing development built on land partly belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall. The development has been praised for its design quality and use of locally sourced natural building materials. North of the former railway line is Collett Park. Across Cannard's Grave Road from Tadley Acres is the Mid-Somerset Showground. Just to the south-west of the town centre, on a site which at the start of the 20th century had been the grounds of the former Summerleaze House and then a shoe factory, is the Townsend Retail Park, built in 2006–2007.
  West Shepton, the south-west corner of the town, is marked by the former Shepton Mallet Union Workhouse, a Grade II listed building built in 1848. It later became the Norah Fry mental hospital and is now a housing development. Nearby, on the western edge of the town, is the modern community hospital. Further down the river valley are two hamlets: Darshill, once the site of a number of mills, and Bowlish, which contains several grand clothiers' houses. The steeply sloping fields adjoining the river between Bowlish and the rest of the Shepton Mallet are known locally as The Meadows. To their east is Hillmead, a council-housing estate built in the 1960s.
caption: Kilver Court Gardens
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A470", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:08:29 15:25:01", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5267", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:08:29 15:25:01", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:08:29 15:25:01", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "213/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "213/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "107/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "4031/500", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2304", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3178", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "96000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "96000/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}