SHAP, a parish in WEST ward, county of WESTMORLAND,
6 miles (N. "W.) from Orton, containing, with
portions of the chapelry of Mardale, of the township
of Fawcet-Forest, and of the hamlet of Birbeck-Fells,
969 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in
the archdeaconry and diocese of Carlisle, rated in the
king's books at £8. 15. 7., endowed with £400 private
benefaction, £600 royal bounty, and £1100 parliamentary
grant, and in the patronage of the Earl of Lonsdale.
The church, dedicated to St. Michael, has lately
received an addition of one hundred and ten ! free
sittings, the Incorporated Society for the enlargement of
churches and chapels having granted £50 towards defraying
the expense. The river Lowther runs through
the parish, which is bounded on the west by the lake
Hawswater, and contains quarries of limestone and blue
slate. In 1687, a charter was obtained for a market
on Wednesday, and three fairs on April 23rd, August 1st,
and September 17th, each for two days, but they have
been long in disuse. At present a small market is held
on Monday, and a fairfor cattle and pedlary on May 4th.
About one mile west from the town, which consists of
a long straggling street, on the high road between Penrith
and Kendal, are the venerable ruins and tolerably
perfect tower of Shap abbey, founded about 1150, by
Thomas Fitz-Gospatrick, in honour of God and St.
Mary Magdalene, for Premonstratensian canons, whom
he caused to be removed hither from an abbey which he
had previously established at Preston in Kendal: at the
dissolution it contained twenty monks, whose revenue
was estimated at £ 166. 10. 6. Thomas Jackson, in 1703,
gave a messuage and land for the erection and support
of a school; the annual income is £25, for which about
twenty children are instructed. In this parish is the
site of a remarkable Druidical monument, or temple,
upwards of half a mile in length, and from twenty to
thirty yards in breadth; it is encompassed by huge
masses of granite, many of them three or four yards in
diameter, placed at irregular distances, having at the
upper end a circus, or hippodrome, sxipposed to have
been the place of sacrifice. Shap Well, the water of
which is impregnated with sulphur, and serviceable
in scorbutic cases, is within the adjoining parish of
Crosby-Ravensworth. At Hardendale, in this parish,
Dr. John Mill, the learned editor of the Greek Testament,
was born, in 1645; he died in 1701.