Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SHAP

SHAP, a village and a parish in West Ward district, Westmoreland. The village stands on the Lancaster and Carlisle railway, amid a high moorland tract, 12 miles S S E of Penrith; was anciently called Heppe; consists of a long straggling street; is a seat of petty sessions and apolling place; and has a head post-office‡ designated Shap, Westmoreland, a r. station with telegraph, an ancient church with a low tower, a Wesleyan chapel, an endowed school for boys with £38 a year, an endowed school for girls with £14, charities £22, a weekly market on Monday, and fairs on 4 May and 28 Sept. The parish contains also ten hamlets, the chapelry of Swindale, and part of the chapelry of Mardale. Acres, 27, 770. Real property, £3, 242. Pop., 991. Houses, 201. The property is subdivided. Most of the surface is lofty, moorish, and bleak; and a great tract of it, in the S W, bears the name of Shap fells. The railway traverses the S part, through a precipitous cut 60 feet deep, at an elevation of about 1,000 feet above sea-level; and passes the village itself through a deep cutting. A Pre-monstratensian abbey was founded at Preston-Patrick, in 1119, by Thomas Gospatrick; was removed, in 1150, to a site about a mile W of Shap village; had there extensive and magnificent buildings, now represented by little more than the great tower of the church; was the burial-place of its founder, of the Veteriponts, of the Cliffords, and of others; was given at the dissolution, to Lord Wharton; and passed, by sale, to an ancestor of the Earl of Lonsdale. A mineral spring, called Shapspa, is within Crosby-Ravensworth parish, 3½ miles S by E of Shap village; is of saline quality similar to the spa of Leamington; and has suites of baths and a hotel. Granite, blue slate, and limestone, are within Shap parish; and Druidical monuments are at Gunnerskeld and Carl-Lofts. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £92.* Patron, the Earl of Lonsdale. The p. curacies of Swindale and Mardale are separate benefices. Mills, the critic, was a native.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Shap CP/AP       Shap CP       West Ward RegD/PLU       Westmorland AncC
Place names: HEPPE     |     SHAP
Place: Shap

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