Shap

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.

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 in 1846, runs along the eastern edge of the village but Shap railway station was closed many years ago, 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 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. The parish shares a joint parish council with Shap Rural.

Shap is on the route of the Coast to Coast Walk. 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.

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 gbmappingsmall|NY583120 and the railway at gbmappingsmall|NY570110.

Shap Fell gbmappingsmall|NY530088 is known for Shap granite [cite web |url = http://www.es.ucl.ac.uk/schools/Glossary/granite.htm |title = Shap granite] that is a pink rock rich in orthoclase, quartz and biotite; Shap Pink Quarry gbmappingsmall|NY557083 takes its name from this. Shap Abbey gbmappingsmall|NY547151 is also nearby.

References

External links

* [http://www.fellhouse.com Fell House Guest House]
* [http://www.mangolive.co.uk Mango eatery]
* [http://www.edgeceramics.co.uk Edge Ceramics]
*oscoor gbx|NY563150 - the village
* [http://www.shapcumbria.info www.shapcumbria.info]

Location Grid