Wellington 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.[1] 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 stop. Wellington 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.