“The key to medieval religion is the fate of the individual's soul after death”

The Premonstratensian abbey of Shap lies on the west bank of a bend of the River Lowther approximately a mile west of the village of Shap. Approaching the site from the east the landscape consists of large late enclosure fields on a limestone escarpment that rises to the north to the prominent features of Wilson and Knipe Scars. West of the river and beyond the few enclosed fields adjacent to Abbey Farm, the landscape is of marked contrast with open, uncultivated fell rising to the distant heights of Hart Fell and High Street at the head of Hawsewater. Tucked in its valley the site is a place of peace, tranquillity and isolation, an ideal place for an establishment "far from men" and the canons who sought those very qualities.

Virtual tour of Shap Abbey

But the monastery did not begin here. It was first founded around 1189 AD at Preston Patrick on a site near junction 36 of the M6 Motorway and moved to Shap about 1200 AD. The monastery was surrendered to King Henry VIII on 14 January 1540, one of the last of the English houses to do so, and the majority of its lands were granted in 1544 to Thomas, Lord Wharton. In 1729 the lands were bought by Robert Lowther of Maulds Meaburn Hall and passed into the Lowther estate. In 1948 following considerable public concern over their condition, the ruins were placed by the Earl of Lonsdale in the guardianship of the Ministry of Works who carried out limited excavation and consolidation and published a guide to the abbey in 1963. In 1999, the management of the site was passed by English Heritage to the Lake District National Park Authority.

Few records of Shap Abbey survive and those which do are mostly copies and entries in other records, but they show that the abbey although never wealthy did have its place in the local community. The abbots played their part in the business of the Premonstratensian Order and the Carlisle diocese, travelling to France to attend the annual chapter of the Order and acting as local collectors of taxes for the king. They quarreled with local people over land ownership and common rights, created a deer park in 1360 and suffered at the hands of gangs of local men in the late 14 th century. The abbey buildings were badly burnt around 1400 and yet in the their final years the canons built a fine tower. At the Dissolution in 1540 the last abbot secured himself a living at Kirkby Thore and all the canons received a pension, some were still living fifteen years later. The buildings were stripped and left to decay and much of the lead was appropriated by Lord Wharton. In 1896, the Earl of Lonsdale took away the best pieces of surviving carved stone to adorn his new gardens at Lowther Castle for a visit of the Kaiser. Later most of that it was recovered and is now stored by English Heritage Berwick on Tweed.

The ruins that survive are of the church, the cloister, the chapter house and warming room and the fine tower. The abbey demesne, that is the land surrounding the site and which the canons retained to work themselves, has never been developed or aggressively farmed and extensive earthworks survive to the west of the river Lowther. To the south of Abbey Farm the ruins of the abbey mill, mill race and fishponds can be seen. The site of the abbey grange survives undisturbed and there are further fishponds and foundations at Hallgarth which also belonged to the abbey, near the village of Shap. At Wet Sleddale where the abbey also had a grange impressive cultivation terraces survive on the hillside together with the line of a dyke marking the limits of the canon’s holding. A large deer pound at the head of the dale may be the work of the canons. The abbey also had granges at Reagill and Milburn.

Listen to Andrew Davison, Inspector of Ancient Monuments for English Heritage has to say about the Abbey's history.

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Therefore there much in the way of physical features for the visitor to study and a more detailed guide book about the abbey is available from the Shap Local History Society Heritage Centre in the village. A manuscript collection of the surviving records of the abbey is deposited at the Cumbria Record Office, Kendal.

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