Shap Abbey

Shap Abbey stands beside the River Lowther in Cumbria, about two and a half kilometres from the village of Shap. It was a Premonstratensian monastery founded in 1190 near Kendal and moved to this site nine years later. The original name ‘Hepp’ meant ‘a heap’, which slowly became ‘Shap’. The abbey’s most notable figure was Abbot Richard Redman, who later became Bishop of St Asaph, Exeter and Ely. After the Dissolution in 1540 most buildings were taken down, though the tower ruins remain striking. The plan of the church and claustral ranges can still be traced across the grass. The abbey church once held the tombs of several Lords Clifford, including Robert de Clifford and his descendants down to Henry Clifford. After the Dissolution the remaining structures became part of a farm, and stone was reused for Shap Market Hall and Lowther Castle. By the late 17th century much carved masonry had been removed. Sections of the old abbey walls survive as part of farm buildings that have not changed greatly in four hundred years. Visitors follow a short path across fields to the small 16th-century Keld Chapel, now looked after by the National Trust. The tower ruins and earthworks show where the nave, transepts and cloister once stood. The Lowther valley and surrounding fells provide a quiet backdrop to the remains. English Heritage manages the site, and the open grassland invites a slow walk among the fragments of the past.