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 between north-east and south-west England.

The name Shepton derives from the Old English scoep and tun, meaning "sheep farm"; the Domesday Book of 1086 records a settlement known as Sceaptun in the hundred of Whitstone.

[7] Nearby countryside provides evidence of Iron Age cave dwellings in Ham Woods to the north-west, and several burial mounds at Beacon Hill, a short distance to the north.

Although there are no visible remains apart from the line of the Roman road, there is archaeological evidence for early military and later civilian settlement lasting into the 5th century.

The grave belonged to a cemetery containing 17 burials aligned roughly east and west, indicating probable Christian beliefs.

[7][9] One find in the Fosse Way burials was a Chi-Rho amulet, thought then to be from the 5th century and considered among the earliest clear evidence of Christianity in England.

The amulet is in the Museum of Somerset, but analysis by Liverpool University in 2008 using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy showed it was a fake: its silver content dates from the 19th century or later.

The many artefacts found included local and imported pottery such as Samian ware, items of jewellery such as brooches, rings and bracelets, toilet items including tweezers, ear scoops and nail cleaners, bronze and iron tools, and a lead ingot which probably originated from the Roman lead mines in the Mendip Hills.

[7] A charter of King Ine of Wessex, from 706, witnessed by nine bishops including the Archbishop of Canterbury, records that the area where Shepton Mallet now stands was passed to Abbot Berwald of Glastonbury Abbey.

When Corcella died, sometime before or around 1100, the land passed to the Malets, a Norman family whose name was added to that of the settlement (and another of their holdings, Curi – now Curry Mallet).

1192–1215) and the payment by his sons-in-law of a fine of 2000 marks for participating in a rebellion against the king) it passed through his daughter Mabel to her husband Hugh de Vivonne.

[24] In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the population and economy were boosted by craftsmen and merchants arriving from France and the Low Countries, who were escaping wars and religious persecution.

[30][31] In 1645 Sir Thomas Fairfax led the New Model Army through the town on the way to capturing Bristol,[4] and in 1646 the church organ was apparently destroyed by Cromwellian soldiers.

[39] There were said to be 50 mills in and around the town in the early 18th century,[40] and a number of fine clothiers' houses survive, particularly in Bowlish, a hamlet on the western edge of Shepton Mallet.

[43][44] The decision resulted in Shepton's cloth trade losing out to the steam-powered mills in the north of England in the early 19th century.

For some of the Second World War, Shepton Mallet Prison was used to store national records from the Public Record Office, including the Magna Carta, the Domesday Book, the logbooks of HMS Victory, dispatches from the Battle of Waterloo and the "scrap of paper" signed by Hitler and British prime minister Neville Chamberlain at the Munich Conference of September 1938.

There are two medical surgeries in Shepton Mallet,[54] a National Health Service community hospital formerly operated by Somerset Primary Care Trust,[55] and an independent sector treatment centre, which carries out certain surgical procedures.

An area of nationally rare species-rich, unimproved calcareous grassland of the Sheep's-fescue-Meadow Oat-grass type lies in a field to the east of Stoke Lane Quarry.

The river has cut a narrow valley, and between Shepton Mallet and the village of Croscombe, to the west, it is bounded by steeply sloping fields and woodland.

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[88] and then a shoe factory, is the Townsend Retail Park, built in 2006–2007.

As the body that bid for the funding, Mendip District Council has run both schemes, but decisions lie with a steering group of the main stakeholders in the town.

[97] This includes other shops: a supermarket, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Ponden Home, Pavers Shoes and an outlet clothing store.

[98] It also split opinion in the town between those awaiting revitalisation and those who feared that local traders would fail to compete, bringing further High Street decline.

[120][121] There are several fine houses in older parts of the town around Lower Lane and Leg Square,[81][82][122] and in outlying suburbs such as Charlton and Bowlish.

[131] What is now a stained glass studio in Ham Lane was once a coal store for a stable belonging to a pub next door, the Butcher's Arms, which ceased trading in 1860.

Included was a new library (a copy of a demolished inn, The Bunch of Grapes), and a concrete entertainment complex, The Centre, on the east side of the market square.

In later life he purchased and gave land to the town to provide a public space; Collett Park, named in his honour, opened in 1906.

The Salvation Army has meeting rooms,[156] while the Methodists, who previously worshipped in a chapel in Paul Street (built in 1810, now a community centre),[157] have agreed to share the parish church with the Anglican congregation.

[172] In 2007, Shepton Mallet came to international attention when Westcountry Farmhouse Cheesemakers broadcast the maturation of a round of Cheddar cheese called Wedginald.

[180] Shepton Mallet is twinned with Misburg in Germany,[195] Bollnäs in Gävleborg County, Sweden, and Oissel sur Seine in Haute-Normandie, France.