Shrewsbury Abbey was originally planned to be just one station on a railway from Llanymynech to Market Drayton but when financial problems halted the project, it became the permanent terminus.

When the station became the permanent terminus after financial difficulties caused the abandonment of the planned extension to Market Drayton, it struggled to make money.

The Royal Engineers reconstructed the railway and built a top secret storage explosives depot at Kinnerley.

The site is now occupied by a surface car park, and the original station building and platform built for the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire was restored in 2005–06.

In 2023, the station received a red wheel plaque from the National Transport Trust commemorating its history as a railway terminus.