It is difficult to imagine than less than 100 years ago this village was an important staging halt for the coach and horses who dropped off their mail here. Gone is the Roman cobbled 'highway' true; but the houses and the church in particular still retain their quaint original character of bygone days.
Wordsworth loved this little place, and gave it inmortality in his poetry.
Here will be found High House with a great round chimney and walls nine feet thick, and on Hughill Fell are fragments of a British village about 160 yards square. You can still see its wall, and traces of hut circles, along with a stonewith curious cup markings.
One of the first men to investigate this ancient village was the botanist Peter Collinson who was born at Hugill Hall in 1694, a great lover of these fells. A celebrated antiquarian, he was a great authority on insects and flowers. Amongst his friends were Sir Hans Sloane and Benjamin Franklin.
A few stones of the old church of Ings are in the new church and an arch is hidden away in a farm, but the new church, like the almshouses with their lovely gardens, have a story of their own, for they were Robert Mateman's offering to the village which was kind enough to give him his opportunity to make a fortune...which he certainly did. He built the church in 1743 and gave it a floor of Italian marble.
It is a memorial to the Dick Whittington of Ings whose portrait will be seen in the nave of the church. Its certainly a wonderful story of how a poor boy became rich, but regretfully his story ended unhappily, for less than a year after the first stones were laid he was killed by an Italian Captain as he was sailing home in one of his own ships.
The Watermill Inn here dates back over 250 years and started life as a wood mill and joiners shop (which it remained until as recently as 1960) where everything from cartwheels to coffins were made.
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