Shap is located directly on the A6 road, at over 800 feet, south of Penrith, and until the building of the M6 extension was a busy town. In fact a hundred years ago, Shap was a stop-over place for the weary traveller arriving on horse back or stage coach. If you look carefully you will still see the steps at each end of the village where passengers would have alighted.
Although Shap has for long been on an important routeway, the Romans bypassed the site of the village around which are many traces of the Stone Age.
There are stone circles at Oddendale, and Gunnerkeld and standing stones were disturbed when the A6 road cut through Carl Lofts to the south while to the north west is the Thunder Stone. travellers may turn off the main road and see the ruins of Shap Abbey in a sheltered valley. They make a fine picture with a background of the distant Mardale fells and the beautiful River Lowther. The Abbey was founded 800 years ago by Thomas Gospatric and fell into ruin soon after. It was surrended in 1540 and Lord Wharton took the valuable lead from the roofs of the buildings. Not even the gateway is standing, but fragments remain of the 13th century church, with stones of the 13th century and a noble tower built about 1500. Although the Abbey buildings would be well concealed in the narrow valley, the west tower, largely intact, looks out over the green moorlands, its great arch a frame for the hills beyond. There are a few fragments left of the presbytery, among them a tomb of the 14th century, the incised cross indicating the grave of one slain in battle, and it is thought that this may be the tomb of Robert de Clifford who was killed at Bannockburn.
Not too far away is Stuart House where Bonnie Prince Charlie is supposed to have lodged on the 17th December 1745, as his bedraggled army retreated towards the border during the Jacobite Rebellion.
When the Abbey was plundered in the 17th century, stone was brought to the village to build the market hall, and at the same time a charter was granted. The arches of the old hall have long since been filled in, and from in later years being a dame school, then the Parish Rooms...it now houses the village library.
On a hillside above the village is a small enclosure where the dead from Mardale churchyard were re-buried when the church was demolished before the waters of Haweswater reservoir covered the area. Around the walls of the enclosure are a number of plaques from the church in memory of the Holmes family...the 'Kings of Mardale'.
Today, Shap has lost its avenue of stones, its stagecoaches, its packhorses, its market, its Abbey, its Spa, even its famous landmark, Shap Thorn, described in Wordsworth's guide as 'planted on the top of the hill for the direction of travellers' is now a prominent group of ash trees. But its quaint little market cross is a cosy library, its coaching inns are as welcoming as ever.
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