Coordinates: 54°31′36″N 2°37′08″W / 54.52667°N 2.61902°W
| Shap | |
 Shap Market Cross |
|
  Shap
Shap shown within Cumbria |
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| Population | 1,221 |
|---|---|
| OS grid reference | |
| Parish | Shap |
| District | Eden |
| Shire county | Cumbria |
| Region | North West |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Cumbria |
| Fire | Cumbria |
| Ambulance | North West |
| EU Parliament | North West England |
| List of places: UK • England • Cumbria | |
Shap is a linear village located amongst fells and isolated dales in Eden district, Cumbria, England. The village lies along the A6 road and is near to the M6 motorway. It is situated 10 miles from Penrith and about 15 miles from Kendal.
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Etymology
Early forms such as Hep and Yheppe point to an Old Norse rendering Hjáp of an Anglo-Saxon original Hēap = "heap", perhaps referring to an ancient stone circle or cairn.
Description
The village has four pubs, a small supermarket, a fish & chip shop, an ethnic restaurant, Mango, (Mexican, Italian, Turkish and Caribbean), a butcher's shop, a primary school, newsagents, café, ceramic art studio called Edge Ceramics, a joint police and fire station, bank, a shoe shop and both Anglican and Methodist churches.
The West Coast Main Line, opened by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway on 17 December 1846, 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.
To the southern end of the village is a factory producing sausages; other major employers in the area are the Hanson and Corus limestone quarries and the RMC Group Shap Granite quarries. Until the late 1990s there was a small factory making shoes in the centre of the village.
Although Shap is a small village, technically it is 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 store.
The civil parish of Shap (formerly Shap Urban Parish) includes the hamlet of Keld and parts of the granite works and Corus limestone works, and has a population of 1,221.[1] The parish shares a joint parish council with Shap Rural.
Shap is on the route of the Coast to Coast Walk. A place to stop on this long walk once arriving in Shap is New Ing Lodge which is situated on route. It has camping pitches, dorm rooms and B&B rooms. There are other B&B's in town and accommodation can be found in a couple of Public Houses.
Some of the scenes in the feature film Withnail and I, which is set in nearby Penrith, were filmed in and around Shap. Sleddale Hall, the filming location for Uncle Monty's cottage Crow Crag, is located near Wet Sleddale Reservoir.
On October 22 1999, a Hawk jet from RAF Leeming crashed into an empty barn in the town before disintegrating across a railway line, killing its two man crew. Both pilots were subsequently hailed as heroes for having steered the aircraft away from the centre of the village rather than ejecting.
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 NY530088 is known for Shap granite[2] that is a pink rock rich in orthoclase, quartz and biotite; Shap Pink Quarry NY557083 takes its name from this. Shap Abbey NY547151 is also nearby.
Shap Wells has a mineral spa in the grounds of a hotel that was used in World War II as a Prisoner of War Camp.
References
External links
- Map sources for Shap - the village
- St. Michael’s Church, Shap
- Rail Worker’s Monument, Shap
- Shap Air Crash Anniversary
Location Grid
| North: Penrith | ||
| West: Haweswater | Shap | East: Maulds Meaburn |
| South: Kendal |
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