SHEPTON

MALLET  , a market town in the eastern parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, 22 M . S.W. of Bath, on the Somerset & Dorset and the Great Western railways . Pop. of urban district (1901), 5238 . The old town extends in a narrow line along the river Sheppey, while the newer town has for its main street a viaduct across the river valley . The church of St Peter and St Paul is especially noteworthy . Consisting of a chancel, clerestoried nave, and aisles, it is Early English and Perpendicular in style, and contains a beautiful 13th-century oak roof of 350 panels, each with a different design; a 15th-century pulpit of carved stone; and some interesting old monuments of the Strode, Mallet and Gournay families . The market cross, over 5o ft. high, and one of the finest in Somerset, was erected by Walter and Agnes Buckland in 1500 . Shepton possesses a grammar school of the 17th century, and a science and art school . The once flourishing cloth and woollen trades have declined, but there are large breweries, roperies, potteries, and, in the neighbourhood, marble, granite, asphalt and lime works . Shepton, before the conquest called Sepeton, was in the possession of the abbots of Glastonbury for four hundred years, and then passed to a Norman, Roger de Courcelle . Afterwards it came into the possession of the Norman barons Malet or Mallet, one of whom was fined for rebellion in the reign of King John . From the Mallets it went to the Gournays, but in 1536 it reverted to the crown, and it is now included in the duchy of Cornwall .

The town received the

grant of a market from Edward II . Monmouth and the rebel army passed through Shepton twice in 1685, and twelve of the rebels were hanged here by Judge Jeffreys .