It opened in 1848 as the terminus station of a broad gauge branch line from the Bristol and Exeter Railway main line: the main line junction station four miles away had originally been called Tiverton Road but was renamed as Tiverton Junction when the branch opened.

From the north, the Tiverton and North Devon Railway was a branch line from the Devon and Somerset Railway at Morebath Junction and brought through services from Dulverton; to the south of Tiverton, the Exe Valley Railway, which opened in 1885, provided services through to Exeter, with a junction with the Bristol and Exeter main line at Stoke Canon.

The station was busy right up to the time of its closure, but traffic on the rest of the Exe Valley line suffered from competition with the roads.

The station was later demolished and much of the rail route around the town has disappeared under the A396 relief road system.

A section of the rail route, between Manley Bridge over the Grand Western Canal and Old Road, adjacent to the junction of Blundells Road and the A369 Great Western Way in Tiverton, has been converted for use as a foot- and cycle-path.