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Shepton Mallet is a town and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset in South West England. Situated approximately 18 miles (29 km) south of Bristol and 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Wells, the town is estimated to have a population of 10,369. It contains the administrative headquarters of Mendip District Council.

The Mendip Hills lie to the north, and the River Sheppey runs through the town. Shepton Mallet lies on the route of the Fosse Way, the principal Roman road into the south west of England, and there is evidence of Roman settlement. The town contains a fine parish church and a considerable number of listed buildings. Shepton Mallet Prison was England's oldest prison still in use until its closure in March 2013.

In medieval times, the wool trade was important in the town's economy, although this declined in the 18th century to be replaced by other industries such as brewing; the town continues to be a major centre for the production of cider. Shepton Mallet is the closest town to the site of the Glastonbury Festival, the largest music festival in Europe. Also nearby is the Royal Bath and West of England Society showground which hosts the Royal Bath and West Show, and other major shows and festivals.

The name Shepton derives from the Old English scoep and tun, meaning 'sheep pen'; the Domesday Book of 1086 records a settlement known as Sceaptun. The current spelling is recorded at least as far back as 1496, in a letter from Henry VII. The second part of the name derives from that of the Norman Malet family who took a lease from Glastonbury Abbey around 1100. The second 'L' appears to have been added in the 16th century.

To the north of the town are several caves of the Mendip Hills, including Thrupe Lane Swallet which is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and the St. Dunstan's Well Catchment which is an important cave system including a series of spectacularly-decorated caves which in total extend to about 4 miles (6.4 km) of mapped passage. The caves at Fairy Cave Quarry were formed mainly by the erosive action of water flowing beneath the water-table at considerable pressure (so called 'phreatic' development), but as the water table has fallen many of the caves now lie well above it and the system now contains a variety of cave formations (stalagmites, stalactites and calcite curtains) which in their extent and preservation are amongst the best in Britain. Shatter Cave and Withyhill Cave are generally considered to be amongst the finest decorated caves in Britain in terms of their sheer abundance of pure white and translucent calcite deposits. Small numbers of greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), lesser horseshoe bat (R. hipposideros) and Natterer's bat (Myotis nattereri) hibernate in the cave system. An area of nationally rare species-rich unimproved calcareous grassland of the Sheep's-fescue-Meadow Oat-grass type occurs in the field to the east of Stoke Lane Quarry.

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 market cross in the town centre, 50 ft (15 m) tall, 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. Former HM Prison Shepton Mallet sometimes known as Cornhill, was built in 1610, is located close to the town centre, adjacent to the parish church. On 10 January 2013, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling announced that it was one of seven prisons in England to close. On 24 December 2014 it was announced that the prison had been sold to the housing development company City and Country and public consultations are taking place to seek agreement on its future use.

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.

Shepton Mallet had railway stations on two lines, both now closed. The first station, called Shepton Mallet (High Street) in British Railways days, was on the East Somerset Railway branch line from Witham and opened in 1859. The line was extended to Wells in 1862 and later connected to the Cheddar Valley line branch of the Bristol and Exeter Railway from Yatton to Wells via Cheddar. Through services between Yatton and Witham started in 1870. The line was absorbed into the Great Western Railway in the 1870s.

A second station, later called Shepton Mallet (Charlton Road), opened in 1874 with the building of the Bath extension of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. This station was some distance east of the centre of the town and was approached on the Charlton Viaduct.

Both stations closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching Axe. Dr Beeching took the view "if I don't use railways, I'll make damn sure that you can't, either." Shepton Mallet (High Street) closed with the withdrawal of passenger services on the Yatton to Witham line in 1963, though part of the former East Somerset line remains open for freight and as a heritage railway. Shepton Mallet (Charlton Road) closed in 1966 with the closure of the Somerset and Dorset line. Nowadays, the nearest Network Rail station is Castle Cary, some eight miles south of Shepton Mallet. However, the nearest station on the East Somerset Railway is Mendip Vale, which is a mile and a half away.