Why not write a review of your favourite site?

What I like about Shap

By

Andrew winterbottom

Lune valley

Where is Shap. That’s the question I hear most people ask when I tell them I’m having a two week holiday there and to be truthful I didn’t know where it was when I first went. Shap is one of those places you pass and never stop at. It is in the middle of nowhere and you think there is nothing to do. Well think again. I love to walk on open fells. But there’s more to do if your not into walking. It’s just outside the Lake district national park, it has easy access to the most common tourist attractions in the lakes. Not to mention some of the best kept secrets. Like Shap abbey and the Keld chapel that are national trust sites and free to visit.

The chapel is the most interesting thing I think I’ve ever seen. It was built in medieval times around 500 years ago, it was connected with the abbey and has fared better than it has. It is intact and is still used to this day.

The chapel is located in Keld and is about 1 mile away from the Shap holiday site. Access to the chapel is by a key located at the house opposite and is usually hung just outside the front door. This chapel is owned by the national trust and anyone can get the key and look around. There’s a donation box that you can contribute if you wish, I think like me you would have no reason not to, It’s defiantly money well spent for the information on the chapel and it’s links with the abbey alone. The abbey is located down the lane next to the Shap holiday site. Although in ruins it is well worth a look around. The stone masonry work alone is beautiful and the tower is impressive

Now some of you I know don’t like walking and would rather go shopping. The Rheged centre is just the other side of Penrith and is interesting. Penrith has a good amount of shops and the famous Penrith market that is held every Saturday, with a good but less impressive car boot on the Sunday. Abbott lodge ice cream parlor is well worth a visit children love the cows and during our meet there is always baby calf’s to thrill the visitors. If you carry on down that road from Abbott lodge and take the second left you will find a garden centre like no other. If you want ideas for your garden then this is the place. The gardens are inspirational. Now for the walkers in you. Take a trip to the end of Haweswater and climb up the trail at the end. You end up on high street (the path on top of the lake district hills, no shop’s.) or if you can find someone to drop you off try a walk back to the site over the fells There are many different routes for old corpse road to my favourite around the back of Branstree via the Gatescarth pass then via Mosedale. Worth it just to see Mosedale cottage, a cottage in the middle of nowhere no roads just a path to it. And then back via Swindale head picking up the road that leads to Rosgill (if you do this walk allow plenty of time it took me about 7 hour pure walking not counting stops). So come and have a look, when the weathers good it’s the best place in the world but when it rains there’s still the shopping and the stewards activities are great, There’s the communal barbecue with horse racing afterwards even the farmer and his family come and join in. there’s the pie and peas lunch and much more. The site is a big field that kid’s can run themselves raged on all day. All these reasons are why I love the THS at Shap. Come and join us. There is something for everyone.

At the abbey is another of my favourite places affectionaly known as Shap beach. It is a bend in the river just before the footbridge that leads to the abbey and is sheltered from the brisk winds that sweep the fells although I would not take to the water some have in the past. With shelter from the wind and a good amount of sun you can understand why people call it the beach.