It is situated on the River Pitt in the South Somerset district midway between Wincanton, Bruton and Castle Cary.

The family's name (given in English variously as "Montagu, Montague, Montacute") was Latinised to de Monte Acuto, meaning "from the sharp mountain", a literal translation of the name of their Normandy manor of origin Montaigu, "sharp mountain" (now Montaigu-les-Bois, in the arrondissement of Coutances).

[3] The manor was held from 1765 by the Phelips family of nearby Montacute House,[2] in the parish of Montacute, Somerset, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Yeovil, also named after the de Montagu family, but possibly from the conically-shaped St Michael's Hill dominating the village to the west.

Shepton Montague Railway Cutting is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest which exposes the most important known section of Fuller's Earth Rock (Middle Jurassic) in England.

[2] Alfred Edwin Eaton (1845–1929) was an English clergyman and entomologist who served as the vicar of Shepton Montague.