About Southill Vets
Southill Vets is a long-established Small Animal practice with four surgeries in the Southwest area.
We are proud to be an independently run practice, serving Wincanton, Gillingham, Milborne Port, Mere, and the surrounding villages on the Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire border.
You can rest assured that we always put the needs of our patients first and will treat your pets as we would our own.
Discover more reasons to choose Southill Vets for your pets’ care.
Our main surgery at Wincanton has an extensive range of facilities to cater for all your pets’ routine healthcare and surgical needs.
We also operate our own 24-hour emergency pet care service so you don’t have to worry about taking your pet anywhere else in the middle of the night.
Our services
Veterinary services at Southill Vets include nursing clinics, vaccinations, and Puppy Classes. We also offer a Pet Health Club to help you save money on your pet’s routine care.
What our clients say about us
Many of our clients have been with us for decades and we’ve cared for their pets through every stage of life. Read what some of our clients had to say about us here in our client testimonials.
Southill Vets’ history
There has been a Veterinary Practice in Wincanton since the end of the nineteenth century, though most of the early history is unwritten.
Above is a photo of the Wincanton vet practice building in the 1900s – see our Wincanton Surgery today.
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In 1935, Mr Auld moved to Wincanton from Scotland and was very experienced in equine and cattle. The Practice grew during the late 1930’s and continued to expand during the war and Wincanton became the centre of an important dairy production area.
Mr Auld worked almost entirely on his own. After the war, veterinary graduates were thin on the ground and only part time help was available. In the 1950’s, Mr Hartley joined Mr Auld and helped with the veterinary work and also tuberculin testing, which had now become universal.
Mr Hudson became a partner in 1962 and an assistant arrived. This made the practice stronger, especially with the new scheme for Brucellosis eradication, which meant blood sampling every animal in the area several times a year.
All this time the Practice was run from one room, which housed all the drugs, records, a table, and two chairs. The Partners’ wives were constantly on duty to take messages, drug requests and a few telephone calls.
By the 1960’s there was a steady flow of enquiries about illness in pets. Luckily, Mr Auld, had purchased all the buildings at Southill, so expansion was not difficult. A waiting room/office and consulting/operating room were opened in the 1970’s and the practice has since expanded to what you see today.
Although it was originally thought ‘we could expand no further’, we have since added a new extension to the existing premises, which was opened by Valerie Singleton on 28th April 2018.
