Shap Abbey, Shap, Cumbria

Photograph taken 02 October 2006 © Liam Wales. Source Historic England Archive Photo Library ref: N060177

This is a reconstruction drawing of Shap Abbey. It was a Premonstratensian monastery. The Premonstratensian order was founded in the 1120s. Like the Cistercians, Premonstratensian canons wore white habits and built their monasteries in remote places. Shap Abbey was founded in about 1200 by a local baron called Thomas, son of Gospatric, who granted the canons land beside the River Lowther. A walled precinct with an outer gatehouse enclosed the monastic buildings, abbey mill and fishponds. The land was granted to the Governor of Carlisle in 1540 following King Henry VIII's suppression of the abbey and the eviction of its canons. Some of the main monastic buildings were re-used as a farm, but most were gradually dismantled and the materials re-used. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010). Find out more

Location

Cumbria Shap

Period

Medieval (Middle Ages) (1066 - 1484)

Themes

A nunnery was first documented here in 603. A monastery was founded during the abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705). It became Benedictine in the reign of Edgar (959–975) and remained so until dissolved in 1539. The final Abbey Church was built circa 1160-70 and had 13th/14th and 15th century additions. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, collapsed in a storm around 1500. The west tower fell around 1550. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today. The abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII. It was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He gave the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.
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Shap Abbey, Shap, Cumbria

Location

Period

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