Shap in Spring

We went to Shap today, it's somewhere I've driven past hundreds of times and never actually stopped (unless you count one bar meal!). It's got a reputation for being peppered with prehistoric sites; a fact I only became aware of in the last few years.

We started off at Gunnerkeld, which is so close to the M6 it's scary! We parked & asked at the farmhouse and walked down past sheep and through mud. It was here that I decided it was freeeeeeeeeezing...

Next we went to Shap proper - starting at the Thunderstone - in a field next to a farmhouse with an extremely noisy cat. Photographs not to scale ;)

We then visited a few other stones in the area, part of the route included a spooky lane between two walls, I could imagine it being the same since ancient times... also a nice view of Helvellyn covered in snow.

While visiting our next stone much nearer the village, the sky started to turn darker (the other reputation Shap has is for wintry weather!) so we started to head for the car. There was one more essential visit to make before we headed home: Kemp Howe stone circle. This has a sad story attached to it - it was victim to enthusiastic Victorian railway engineers who decided it was in the way. What remains is a fraction of the circle, immediately adjacent to Network Rail's fence. To add insult to injury, humans later built an enormous cement works.

This site has the interesting story of Shap (complete with overhead shots): Visit Cumbria - Shap

For more information on the prehistory of the Shap area, read this excellent Modern Antiquarian blog by fitzcoraldo