Home»All Photographs»Cumbria»Shap Abbey

Set hard against the banks of the River Derwent, in flood on the day, 1.5 miles from Shap, 745 feet above sea level is Shap Abbey, a Premonstratensian foundation dating from 1199. The site is typically Cistercian, isolated but well endowed with wood and water.The abbey is very small but the outine at ground level is very clear. Somehow it escaped the dissolution until the very end and was among the last of the religious hoses to be suppressed in 1540.
Updated January 2026.