Shap

Etymology

Early (12th- and 13th-century) forms such as Hep and Yheppe point to an Old Norse rendering Hjáp of an Old English original Hēap = "heap", (of stones), perhaps referring to an ancient stone circle, cairn, or to the Shap Stone Avenue just to the west of the village.

Description

The village has three pubs, a small supermarket, a fish and chip shop, an antique book shop, a butcher's shop, a primary school, a newsagent's, a coffee shop, a ceramic art studio called Edge Ceramics, a fire station, a shoe shop (New Balance factory shop) an Anglican church and 3 B&B/ Hostels. There is also a small library, this is in the process of being relinquished from local council control and being adopted by the community as part of a budget cutting measure.

Major employers in the area are Hanson and Tata Steel.

Although Shap is geographically a small village, it is legally a market town with a charter dating from the 17th century. The parish was, between 1905 and 1935, administered by an urban district council. At one time, the granite works (which are situated about a mile outside the village) was in itself a separate community, with its own Co-op.

The civil parish of Shap (formerly Shap Urban Parish) includes the hamlet of Keld and parts of the granite works and limestone works, and has a population of 1,221, increasing to 1,264 at the 2011 Census. The parish shares a joint parish council and an electoral ward with Shap Rural. The total population of the electoral ward taken at the 2011 census was 1,394.

Shap is on the route of the Coast to Coast Walk. There are a few places to stop on this long walk once arriving in Shap. The New Ing Lodge, the Hermitage, Brookfield House, Green Farm (camping) and the King's Arms and Greyhound pubs.

Some of the scenes in the feature film Withnail and I were filmed around Shap. Sleddale Hall, the filming location for Uncle Monty's cottage Crow Crag, is located near Wet Sleddale Reservoir.

On 22 October 1999, a Hawk jet from RAF Leeming crashed into an empty barn in the village before disintegrating across the A6 and West Coast railway line, killing its two-man crew.

Transport links

The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (now part of the West Coast Main Line), opened on 17 December 1846, and runs along the eastern edge of the village, but Shap railway station was closed in 1968, though there have been recent calls for its re-opening. The village sits on the A6 main road, and until the building of the M6, all of the main west coast road traffic ran through the village. Shap has easy access to the M6. Penrith is the closest railway station and is situated on the West Coast Main Line. The local bus service to Penrith has recently been cut, making Shap more car dependent than it had been previously.

Dialect

The people of Shap speak a variant of the Penrithian dialect, which is itself a variant of the Cumbrian dialect spoken around the Penrith and Eden district area.

Attractions

Shap Summit is located on the motorway at NY583120 and the railway at NY570110. Shap Fell used to be notorious for the difficult and dangerous stretch of A6 for drivers, and it includes a well-known section of the West Coast Main Line. It has a 1:75 gradient for trains heading north, and in the days of steam locomotives banking engines from Tebay were often being used to assist trains. It has been popular with railway photographers and there have been many pictures published taken in the area, most notably at Scout Green which lies on the southern approach to the hill.

Shap Fell NY530088 is known for Shap granite that is a pink rock rich in orthoclase, quartz and biotite; Shap Pink Quarry NY557083 takes its name from this.

Shap Abbey NY547151 is nearby in the secluded valley of the river Lowther. Impressive ruins dating from 1199.

Shap Wells has a mineral spa located in the grounds of the Shap Wells hotel which was used in World War II as a prisoner of war camp.