Shepshed (often known until 1888 as Sheepshed,[1] also Sheepshead – a name derived from the village being heavily involved in the wool industry) is a market town and civil parish in the Charnwood Borough of Leicestershire, England with a population of 14,875 at the 2021 census.

Very little information about the settlement on the site of Shepshed appears before the Domesday Book but the name is certainly Anglo-Saxon: local history books claim that Shepshed has two of the oldest roads in the country, Ring Fence and Sullington Road, the latter being an ancient British track named after the goddess Solina.

[citation needed] The 11th century Parish church of St Botolph (the westernmost parish church in England to bear the name)[citation needed] and its land the Oakley Wood was originally given to Odo of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror, after the Norman conquest in 1066.

Garendon Abbey, whose economy was largely based on sheep farming, was one of the most important possessor of granges in Leicestershire.

The vicar of St. Botolph's church at the time, the reverend Thomas Heath, recorded in the parish registers: "Sept 30, 1750, this day (Sunday), while I was administering the Sacrament, between the hours of 12 and 1 o’clock, I and the congregation were very terrible of the shock of an earthquake.

[8] The Charnwood Forest Railway (nicknamed the Bluebell Line on account of the proliferation of the flower) was opened in 1883,[9] but regular passenger services ceased in 1931.

Shepshed railway station no longer stands though part of the old line forms a bridleway between the town and Thringstone including the now redundant viaduct at Grace Dieu.

The main school was previously Hind Leys Community College which educated pupils from 14 to 19, in the town, and included pupils not only from Shepshed, but also from local towns and villages such as Loughborough, Kegworth, Belton, Castle Donington, Diseworth, Long Whatton and Tonge.

There are four primary schools in the town, and three of these feed into Iveshead; Oxley, St Botolph's (Recently Demolished) and Newcroft.

The first team ground shares with Shepshed Dynamo at the Dovecote stadium while the reserves are based at Little Haw Lane.

In front of the station is a memorial to two Shepshed police officers who were murdered in the line of duty in 2002[19][20] and two long-serving firefighters, one of whom died en route to a fire call in 2006.