Maesbury Railway Cutting

Masbury railway station was a small isolated station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway's main line between Evercreech Junction and Bath. It was situated to the north of Shepton Mallet and near the summit of the line as it crossed the Mendip Hills. The station opened in 1874 and closed with the rest of the line under the Beeching Axe in March 1966. Maesbury Railway Cutting is a two hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest between East Horrington and Gurney Slade and a Geological Conservation Review site because it exposes approximately 135 metres of strata representing the middle and upper Lower Limestone Shales and the basal Black Rock Limestone. Both formations are of early Carboniferous (Courceyan) age. It lies close to the Iron Age hill fort Maesbury Castle. The station was never heavily used, and from 1938 it was reduced to a "halt" status. A feature of the station was a substantial stone-built stationmaster's house on the main northbound platform. The front of the house, which is still standing and in private hands, features a fanciful carving of Maesbury Castle as a medieval castle: in fact, Maesbury is an Iron Age fort nearby. There is about a half-mile of ramparts and views to Glastonbury Tor. The station is located mostly on private land but a public footpath crosses it. In May 2013 an online appeal was launched by the Somerset & Dorset Railway Heritage Trust to raise £500,000 by 30 September 2013 to purchase the station. The trust eventually raised only £80,000 by the deadline, and the site was sold to another party. The site is now in private hands so visitors are asked to respect the fact that it is a family home. Plans are in progress to restore the station to its original state, including rebuilding the signal box and renovating the platforms and waiting rooms.

Maesbury Castle is an Iron Age hill fort within the parish of Croscombe on the Mendip Hills, just north of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England. It has been listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.The name is derived from maes, meaning field or plain in Brythonic Welsh, and burh, meaning fort in Old English. There is also a record of the name Merksburi in 705 AD, meaning boundary fort. The area was a boundary between the Romano-British Celts and West Saxons during the period 577-652 AD, when the nearby Wansdyke fortification comprised part of the border. The enclosure has an area of 2.5 hectares (6.2 acres), and lies at a height of 292 m (950 ft), with views in many directions. This includes the Somerset Levels to Glastonbury Tor and Brent Knoll which are the closest and probably the most easily identifiable landmarks from the site. The fort has a single rampart up to 6 m high, with an outer ditch (univallate). Entrances are to the south-east and north-east (with possible outworks). The Fort and surrounding grounds are now owned by the Stevens' family who have been farming in Somerset for over 60 years.

Thrupe Lane Swallet (grid reference ST603458) is a 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 1992. It is also a Geological Conservation Review site. The name Thrupe Lane comes from the nearby hamlet of Thrupe, which in Anglo-Saxon meant dairy farm.The swallet is a small, single pothole cave system that is dominated by a series of deep (117 metres (384 ft)) and mainly vertical passages, which follow fault lines, natural joints in the rock and mineral veins. It shows a form of cave development not seen elsewhere in the Mendips and contains the tallest vertical shaft in any known cave on the Mendip Hills, Atlas Pot, which is 60 metres (197 ft) deep. The stream that flows through the cave is one of those that feeds St Andrew's Wells in the grounds of the Bishop's Palace in Wells.Thrupe Lane Swallet was first entered in 1974 following digging by three caving groups. The entry shaft has been blasted open to ensure a stable entrance.

Binegar railway station was a station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway in the county of Somerset in England. Opened on 20 July 1874, the station consisted of two platforms, with a building on the down platform. There was a substantial goods yard with two sheds and sidings, controlled from a 24 lever signal box. Being the first station north of the line's summit at Masbury Binegar was also where locomotives used as banking engines on north-bound trains would drop off and cross the line ready to return south. The station closed to goods in 1963: passenger services were withdrawn when the SDJR closed on 7 March 1966.

The Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Binegar, Somerset, England is Norman but has been rebuilt and restored several times since. It is a Grade II* listed building.

Binegar is a small village and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is located on the A37, 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Wells, between Shepton Mallet and Chilcompton. Its population in 2011 was 313. Binegar and Gurney Slade on the opposite side of the A37 are effectively a single village and share a sign on the main road. In Gurney Slade, the quarry and houses on the north side of Tape Lane are in Binegar parish whilst the south side is in Ashwick parish. In Binegar, some houses on the south side of Station Road are in Ashwick parish and some on the north side of the village are in Emborough parish.

Windsor Hill Quarry (grid reference ST615451) is a 0.8 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Shepton Mallet on the Mendip Hills in Somerset, adjacent to the Windsor Hill Marsh biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It was notified in 1971. It is a Geological Conservation Review site for vertebrate studies in which examples of the tritylodont Oligokyphus were identified.The disused quarry was connected to the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway until 1957 when the sidings were removed.

Windsor Hill Marsh (grid reference ST619454) is a 0.84 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, north of the town of Shepton Mallet in Somerset, and adjacent to the Windsor Hill Quarry geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It was notified in January 1972. Windsor Hill Marsh is a marshy silted pond, with adjacent damp, slightly acidic grassland. Adjoining the marsh are a limestone bank, and a short stream which flows into a swallet.

Croscombe is a village and civil parish 2 miles (3 km) west of Shepton Mallet and 4 miles (6 km) from Wells, in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. It is situated on the A371 road in the valley of the River Sheppey. Croscombe has a village hall, a shop, a public house, a Church, a chapel and a school.

The Old Manor in Croscombe, Somerset, England, was built around 1460–89 as a rectorial manor house for Hugh Sugar, the Treasurer of Wells Cathedral. It was altered in the 16th and 18th centuries, and in the 20th century by the Landmark Trust. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

Gurney Slade quarry, grid reference ST626497 is a limestone quarry near Gurney Slade between Binegar and Holcombe, on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England. Gurney Slade quarry exhibits pale to very dark grey Carboniferous Limestone overlain by red and purple-coloured Triassic breccias and marls with a small faulted block of overlying Lower Jurassic breccias forming an angular unconformity with the Carboniferous Limestone. There is abundant vertical sediment infilled fissures and joints (Neptunian Dykes). The rocks contain varying amounts of calcite mineralization, and there is common fossil material associated with the Carboniferous and Jurassic limestones. The limestone within the quarry dips to the south-east at around 30°.Work began at the quarry in the mid 18th century and grew after it was taken over by Francis Flower and Sons in 1928 producing stone for lime-burning. The quarry closed in 1947 and was reopened in 1951 by John Yeoman of Foster Yeoman. The next owner was City Sand and Gravel Co. and taken over by Morris & Perry (Gurney Slade) Ltd. who still operate the quarry. A Concrete plant was installed in 1963 and a coated macadam plant in 2001. The site is now capable of supplying up to 2 Million Tonnes Per Annum of Carboniferous Limestone aggregate. Francis Flower have a facility adjacent to the quarry which processes filler by-product from several Mendip quarries.

Hobbs Quarry (grid reference ST622446) is a 0.5 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Shepton Mallet on the Mendip Hills in Somerset, notified in 1984. This disused quarry, which now forms the back of a builders merchants yard, is a Geological Conservation Review Site which demonstrates early Jurassic transgression, with steeply-dipping Carboniferous Limestone being overlain by flatter-lying massive limestones (of early Jurassic age) known as the Downside Stone.