Shepton Mallet - Landmarks

Landmarks

There are 218 listed buildings in Shepton Mallet and the town is in receipt of funding for the restoration of chosen town centre historic buildings from the English Heritage Heritage Economic Regeneration Scheme and the National Lottery Townscape Heritage Initiative. The town centre, and the Bowlish, Darshill and Charlton areas, form a conservation area.

The hexagonal, 50 ft (15 m) tall, market cross in the town centre dates back to a bequest of £20 by Walter Buckland in 1520, and was rebuilt in 1841. Also in the market place is The Shambles, a medieval market stall, although it has been much restored. HM Prison Shepton Mallet, which was built in 1610, is located close to the town centre, adjacent to the parish church.

There are a number of fine houses in the older parts of the town around Lower Lane and Leg Square, as well as in the outlying suburbs such as Charlton and Bowlish. Old Bowlish House, which now houses a contemporary art gallery, dates from the first half of the 17th century and was remodelled in about 1720 in the Palladian style. Bowlish House, also in the Palladian style and now a hotel and restaurant, was built in 1732 by a prosperous local clothier; a spring is reported to rise in the cellar. Park House in Forum Lane dates to about 1700 and was modified about 1750. Others among the 19 grade II listed buildings in Bowlish include Coombe House, which was built c. 1820; 14, 15 and 16 Combe Lane, which were built around 1700 with 18th-century alterations; 26 to 29 Combe Lane, which is a former mill built around 1700 and enlarged in 1850; and 30 and 31 Combe Lane, which are two weaver's cottages dating to about 1850. What is now a stained glass studio in Ham Lane was formerly a coal store attached to a stable which belonged to the public house next door, The Butcher’s Arms, which ceased trading in 1860. The studio has provided stained glass for, among others, the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Ghost, Midsomer Norton. As a consequence of its historic nature, Bowlish is included within Shepton Mallet's conservation area and is a site of special archaeological interest.

In the hamlet of Darshill, on the road from Shepton Mallet to Wells, there is a silk drying shed, known locally as a handle house, three walls of which are full of holes to allow the passage of air to aid in the process of drying teasle heads, which were used to raise the nap on cloth in the textile process.

The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery was built in the 1860s and still dominates the western parts of Shepton Mallet; fairly nearby is a former workhouse and then hospital, the Norah Fry Hospital, which was built in 1848 and has now been converted into housing. Two now-disused railway viaducts are to be found in the town, including the Charlton Viaduct which has 27 arches, each spanning 28 feet (8.5 m). It is on a curve of 30 chains radius falling at 1 in 55 from each end to the midpoint.

The market cross, the prison and prison wall, The Merchants House (8 Market Place), Anglo-Bavarian Brewery, Charlton Viaduct, the former St Michael's Roman Catholic Church at Townsend, and Bowlish House, Old Bowlish House and Park House in Bowlish are the town's nine grade II* listed buildings.

The town centre was extensively remodelled in the 1970s, a scheme financed by the Showerings family who owned the town's cider manufactories. The scheme included a new library (in a faithful copy of a former inn, The Bunch of Grapes, which had been demolished), and a new entertainment complex called The Centre, entirely in concrete, on the eastern side of the market square. When the allegedly Roman Chi Rho amulet was found in the Fosse Lane excavations in the 1990s, the complex was renamed The Amulet in honour of the find. It has recently been renamed again as The Academy.

Shepton benefits from a sizeable park, a gift of land from a local man, John Kyte Collett. As a boy he was thrown out of the grounds of local estates for trespass so in later life he purchased and gave land to the town to provide a public space; this park, which opened in 1906, is called Collett Park in his honour.