Under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Poor Law Commission was given the power to unite parishes in England and Wales into Poor Law Unions, each Union being administered by a local Board of Guardians according to the directions issued by the Commission. According to the Act, relief was only to be given to able-bodied paupers through the workhouse and central to the formation of a Union was the provision of a workhouse building.

A new West Ward union workhouse was erected in 1877 on Home Lane in Shap and was first occupied on 17th December that year. It accommodated 60 inmates and cost £7,000 to build. The workhouse location and layout can be seen on the 1897 map below.

By 1924, the workhouse had closed and its inmates transferred to the East Ward union workhouse at Kirkby Stephen.

The area around Shap was extensively settled in Neolithic times, and there are several stone circles, and other standing stones nearby. Shap itself was built on the site of a 2 mile long Neolithic stone avenue which had at its mid point a 400m diameter stone circle which is very close to the holiday cottage. You can read more about the standing stones and stone circles of Shap here

Brackenber in the news:

27 March 1910 - A workhouse child is still absent from Shap School. Why? - The Workhouse Master; I do not know what you resolved on, and the child is still under the doctor - send the School the doctor's certificate.

29 April 1910 - In Shap Workhouse 237 tramps late March, down 47 on the same time last year.

1939 - The troubles of wartime forced Worsley Home For Boys nr Manchester to close and the boys were evacuated to Shap (on the edge of the Lake District)

The Shap workhouse building was later used as a children's home by the Carlisle Union - we have had several visits over the years by people who were housed as children in the cottage. One visitor even pointed out his name he had scratched in one of the cottage windows.

"I liked being at the Children's home in Shap, Cumberland living with children my own age. One day Miss Graves - I remember her well - dressed me in my sailor suit of white and blue & little straw hat. We boarded the train bound for Preston. I was 6 years of age".

WILLIAM JAMES HARDING

c1926

When the children's home closed, the whole site was sold to the local Shap Granite Company who divided up the buildings into 10 separate dwellings to house for the workforce. In the 1970's the houses were sold off and are now privately owned.

An excellent website about life in a workhouse can be found here

1881 Census: Residents of West Ward Workhouse, Shap, Westmorland

Total residents: 80

PENRITH HERALD and East Cumberland andWestmorland News, Saturday, January 10,1874 / WEST WARD UNION MEETING 

No. 434. Second Week in Quarter. Registered for Transmission Abroad. Price One Penny
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WEST WARD UNION.

The Guardians of the West Ward Union held their fortnightly meeting at Eamont Bridge Workhouse on Wednesday afternoon. In the absence of MR. JAMES ATKINSON (the chairman), MR. JAMESON was called upon to preside. The ex officio members present were REV. W. R. MARKHAM, REV. G. F. WESTON, and REV. S. WHITESIDE. There was a fair attendance of elected Guardians.
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ANOTHER TURN IN THE WORKHOUSE TROUBLE.

The CLERK said MESSRS. CORY and FERGUSON, architects of Carlisle, had, as requested, furnished a plan of the alterations in and additions to the old workhouse, together with all necessary information. The CHAIRMAN said having now before them the site for the workhouse in a clear and intelligible form, the next thing was to consider how much was to be paid for it. The land required was computed to be 1 acre and 1,420 square yards, and for this £150 an acre would have to be paid, and for the present building would cost £779. The original agreement was that the Board was to take the farm buildings behind the old house, and for these MR. COWPER was to be allowed £577. This arrangement was made about two years ago; but since that time MR. COWPER had become rather infirm, and instead of erecting the farm buildings himself, he would rather that the Board found the materials and put up the buildings for him.
MR. JOHN LONGRIGG thought it was time to give up altogether if they could not get a site without going to work to erect an expensive block of buildings for another person.
MR. IRVING objected to expending the ratepayer's money in such a manner.
A general feeling was expressed against entertaining MR. COWPER's request, and a deputation, consisting of MR. JAMESON, REV. G. F. WESTON, and CAPTAIN MARKHAM, were appointed to wait upon MR. COWPER in reference to the subject.

ANOTHER DIFFICULTY.

A communication was read from the Local Government Board concerning the plans of the new Vagrant Wards at Shap. They were desirous of ascertaining whether the premises which were formerly occupied by the Guardians of the West Ward Union for that purpose could not again be used in the same way.
In reply to a question, the CHAIRMAN said that LORD LONSDALE had not withdrawn his offer of a site for a Vagrant Ward at Shap.
After a long and somewhat animated discussion, it was decided to obtain the information required by the Local Government Board and trasmit to London, the question as to the desirability of the building for a Vagrant Ward being left over for further consideration.

The Guardians then resolved themselves into a sanitary authority, the places reported upon being Great Strickland and Shap, and the alterations suggested were ordered to be carried.
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Events of 1877 when the cottage was built

January–March

• January 1 – Queen Victoria is proclaimed Empress of India by the Royal Titles Act 1876, introduced by Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom .
• January 8 – Indian Wars – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana.
• January 20 – The Conference of Constantinople ends with Ottoman Turkey rejecting proposals of internal reform and Balkan provisions.
• March 1 - William James gave a public lecture at Sanders Theatre, Harvard entitled Recent Investigations on the Brain.
• March 2 – In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
• March 4
  • Emile Berliner invents the microphone.
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuts.
  • Rutherford B. Hayes becomes President of the United States, succeeding Ulysses S. Grant.
• March 15 – 1877 Australia v. England series: The first Test cricket match is held between England and Australia.
• March 24 – For the only time in history, the Boat Race between the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford is declared a "dead heat" (i.e. a draw).

April–June

• April 24 – Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
• May 6 – Realizing that his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
• May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
• May 16 – The May 16, 1877 political crisis occurs in France.
• May 21 – (May 9 O.S.) – Romania declares itself independent from the Ottoman Empire (recognized in 1878 after the end of the Romanian independence war).
• May 31 – Brantford, Ontario, Canada is officially incorporated as a city.
• June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
• June 17 – Indian Wars – Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
• June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
• June 26 – The eruption of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador causes severe mudflows that wipe out surrounding cities and valleys, killing 1,000.
• June 30 – The British Mediterranean fleet is sent to Besika Bay.

July–September

• July 9 – The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club begins its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon.
• July 10 – The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
• July 16 – Great railroad strike of 1877: Riots by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad railroad workers in Baltimore, Maryland lead to a sympathy strike and rioting in Pittsburgh, and a full-scale worker's rebellion in St. Louis, briefly establishing a Communist government before U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes calls in the armed forces.
• July 19 – Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878: The first battle in the Siege of Pleven is fought.
• July 30 – The second battle in the Siege of Pleven is fought.
• August 9 – Indian Wars – Battle of Big Hole: Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army loses 29 soldiers and Indians lose 89 warriors in a U.S. Army victory.
• August 11 – Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, the outer moon of Mars.
• August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
• August 18 – Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, the inner moon of Mars.

• September 1 – The Battle of Lovcha, third battle in the Siege of Pleven, is fought.
• September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

October–December

• October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
• October 22 – The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners.
• November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound, considered Edison's first great invention. Edison demonstrates the device for the first time on November 29.
• November 22 – The first college lacrosse game is played between New York University and Manhattan College.
• December 9 – The fourth battle of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878 is fought, concluding the Siege of Pleven.
• December 14 – Serbia restates its previous declaration of war against Turkey.

]Undated

• Nineteenth Century magazine is founded.
• September 1877: The first meeting of the Knights of Reliance in Lampasas County, Texas, which morphed into the Farmer's Alliance and eventually became the Populist Party.^[1]
• Winter 1877/1878: after the defeat of the Dungan revolt in China, several thousands refugees cross the Tian Shan to settle in the Russian Empire, thus starting the future "Soviet Dungan" ethnic group.
• A professionally led army of draftees crushes a major rebellion by feudal elements protesting the loss of their previleges in Japan.

Ongoing events

• Aceh War, Netherlands colonial war in Aceh (aka Thirty Years War) (1873–1904)
• War between Russia and the Ottoman Empire (Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878), leading to the formation of Bulgaria in 1878.