Shepperton is a village in the Spelthorne district, in north Surrey, England, around 15 mi (24 km) south west of central London.

In the 19th century, resident writers and poets included Rider Haggard, Thomas Love Peacock, George Meredith, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, who were attracted by the proximity of the River Thames.

Lindsay had hoped to extend the railway via Chertsey to connect to the South Western Main Line, however the village station remains a terminus.

The rise in population and passing trade led to small businesses lining most of its high street by the end of the 20th century.

[2] The name is thought to derive from the Old English scēp (sheep), hirde (herdsman) and tūn (enclosure, farm or settlement).

A henge, taking the form of a penannular ring ditch, was discovered in the late 1980s, close to the River Ash, to the north of Shepperton Green.

Radiocarbon dating showed that the woman had lived in the late 3rd millennium BCE and analysis of the isotope composition of her teeth suggested that she had grown up in an area where lead-zinc ore was found, possibly Derbyshire, the Mendips or the North Pennines.

It had a population of 25 households and was held by Westminster Abbey; (excluding any woodland, marsh and heath) it had eight hides, pasture for seven carucates and one weir (worth 6s 8d per year).

[19] The River Thames was important for transport from the late 13th century and carried barley, wheat, peas and root vegetables to London's markets; later timber, building materials such as bricks, sand and lime, and gunpowder, see the Wey Navigation.

[20] While the village was wholly agricultural until the 19th century, there are originally expensive gravestones of the local minor gentry in the churchyard, two of which are dedicated to their naturalised black servants, Benjamin and Cotto Blake who both died in 1781.

Amos Barton, gives a thinly veiled picture of Chilvers Coton's church and village in the early 19th century in which she uses the name Shepperton.

[28] Leading to this is a short, since 1989 bypassed, winding lane from the High Street to Church Square, flanked by Shepperton Manor and the cricket ground, with some listed walls.

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the view looking towards the south-east of the square with its now listed buildings and river opening as "one of the most perfect village pictures that the area has to offer".

Also Grade II* listed is the c. 1500 timber framed Old Rectory refronted in the early 18th century,[19] and including a reception hall built in 1498.

[35][n 1] Also architecturally Grade II* is restored half timbered Winches Cottage on the west side of the lane which is 17th century.

[19][37] This area is typified by a small number of detached classical three-storey 18th century riverside houses high on the riverside road on the outside of the river bend; the bend being flanked by riverside meadows with small boat moorings, low rise chalet-style houses to the south west, the Las Palmas Estate, named after the land once being that of the Spanish Ambassador; further west by the wooded Shepperton Cricket Club and by the village Green, Bishop Duppas Park to the east, formerly Lower Halliford Common and in a small part owned by the Old Manor House (Halliford).

[n 2] Wealthy writers built or expanded homes here in the 19th century, primarily as summer residences, such as Rider Haggard, Thomas Love Peacock, George Meredith and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

[42] The creation of Desborough Cut diverted the main navigation of the Thames away from the Lower Halliford and Shepperton loop, rendering flooding far less common.

[43] The field land and large houses on this estate were bought by Lyon Homes from landowner and developer Edward Scott in the 1950s.

This estate of buildings on this street are in a conservation area for proving a successful modular development in geometric, white-painted modernism from in the 1960s, one of very few private sector estate housing experiments of the 1960s with terraced, white panelled communal landscaped front gardens by Swiss architect Edward Schoolheifer; this American Radburn style was also used by Eric Lyons Span Developments in Ham Common, Richmond, London, Blackheath, London and New Ash Green, Kent.

Shepperton's central SSSI is on the south side of the motorway Sheep Lake Walk and meadows, managed by Surrey Wildlife Trust.

Shepperton has a traditional high street, shorter than that at nearby Ashford with two medium-size supermarkets, village hall, library, shops, optician, hairdressers, a wide range of restaurants, several cafés, with the railway terminus at the northern end.

Public transport is co-ordinated by Surrey County Council who also provide the statutory emergency fire and rescue service who have a station in Sunbury.

The South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust provides emergency patient transport to and from this facility.

On the opposite bank are in downstream order are Chertsey Bridge and Chertsey Meads, the Hamm Court area of Addlestone, three islands, (the first two of which have multiple properties) (Lock[n 3], Hamhaugh and D'Oyly Carte, one large man-made island, (Desborough), and the riverside parts of Walton on Thames, the upstream part of which is also open land, Cowey Sale Park.

[47] A farm combined with a significant amount of fishing and gravel lakes form the outskirts and within the clustered settlement an estate of the homes was built as non-serving personally barracks for the British Army.

Works produced or shot wholly or in part on its 15 stages, other lots or in its extensive animation facilities since the new millennium include: Lower Halliford, a completely contiguous so also integral part of Shepperton, used to be home to Halliford Film Studios, opposite the Manygate Lane conservation area, built in 1955 and one of the first film studios devoted to TV commercial production.

Through the town there is the Thames Path and there are popular adjacent flat cycling routes to Windsor, Hampton Court Palace and Richmond.

[66][67] Founded in 1936, St John Fisher Roman Catholic church led by Fr Shaun Richards adopts a vibrant approach to parish life involving "Prayer, Partnership, Pilgrimage, and Panto" the last two of which are annual and the first two of which are intended to be daily or regular activities of its believers.

The parish places emphasis on helping the housebound and sick, CAFOD and takes part in the Westminster Diocese pilgrimage to Lourdes.