is a small industrial town in rural Somerset, England,
situated seven miles south west of Taunton in the
Taunton Deane district, near the border with Devon,
which runs along the Blackdown Hills to the south
of the town. The town has a population of 13,696.
It has many dependent villages including West Buckland,
Langford Budville, Nynehead, Sampford Arundel and
Sampford Moor. Rockwell Green is a formerly-independent
village to the West of the town and while there
is a green belt of land in between them, many consider
it to be part of the town.
In the 1970s,
housing developments happened on the South side
of the town, prompted by its proximity to Junction
26 of the M5 motorway.
The town had
its own railway station until the Beeching Report
of 1963 which closed hundreds of the UK's provincial
railway stations. The main Great Western Main
Line from Penzance to London, and also to Bristol
and the North, runs past the town, but no trains
gave its name to the first Duke of Wellington,
Arthur Wellesley, and boasts a large obelix to
his honour, spotlit, on top of the closest hill
to the town, the Wellington Monument. This is
now separated from the town by the major motorway
in the South-West, the M5. Because of this, Wellington,
Somerset can have a legitimate claim to have contributed
to the more widespread use of the term in other
place names and, of course, the Wellington Boot.