The station buildings at Shepton and Witham Friary, as well as the bridges along the route, were constructed of Inferior Oolite from nearby Doulting Stone Quarry.

This part of the line was opened on 1 March 1862 and made it 13 mi 65 ch (22.2 km) long.

In 1878, the Great Western Railway (GWR) joined the East Somerset line with the Cheddar Valley line to Wells, which had been built by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, by obtaining running rights over a section of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR) and running its trains through the S&DJR Wells station at Priory Road, though GWR trains did not stop at Priory Road until 1934.

In 1971/72, the artist David Shepherd came across, viewed and later purchased Cranmore station and a section of the track to house and run his two locomotives; the British Rail (BR) 2-10-0 Class 9F No.

In 1991, a new station building was constructed at Cranmore which now includes a cafe, booking office, gift shop and toilets.

CTMS is based opposite the ESR loco workshop in a separate preservation era shed.

[citation needed] The ESR is host to a Class 108 DMU as well as a fleet of Sentinel shunting locomotives, these are listed below: The distance from Cranmore to Mendip Vale is 1 mile 63 chains (2.9 km).