A brief overview

Shap Abbey is in a remote valley that was once home to a community of Premonstratensian canons. Living a contemplative monastic life, these canons also served as priests in nearby parishes.

The Abbey as it may have appeared in the 1530s shortly before its suppression (by Liam Wales) © English Heritage 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.