Ings History

• Early history
• Earliest buildings
• St Anne's Church
• Ings benefactors
• Road, rail & water
• Ings garage in WW2
• Acknowledgements

Ings Buildings

The Earliest Buildings

Rispeton Mill

The first building for which records are thought to exist is Reston Mill. In 1272, the will of Walter do Lyndesey reads that at his death he held, amongst other things.... "a moiety of the vill of mills of Kirkeby in Kendale, Rispeton (Reston) and Applethwayt....out of which 10 marks had to be paid to the brethren of the hermitage of St. Mary’s Isle in Wynandremere for ever". In 1274, the mill was held by Robert de Ros, who also owned a meadow near the mill called Rispetonhenge. Its use for grinding corn continued well into the C19th when it was bought for its water rights.

 

Chappelle of the Inges

In 1511, Thomas Birkhede of Hugill was granted an indulgence to complete a beautiful chapel, dedicated to St Anne. Simultaneously, Pope Pius II was rebuilding St Peter’s in Rome, funded by the sale of indulgences, a practice that was lead to the Reformation. St Anne’s Farm, at the top of Grassgarth Lane is said to occupy the site of the former chapel and perhaps to incorporate remains of its structure; there is, however, no visible evidence of this. The Chapelle was mentioned in Henry 8th’s survey of religious establishments in 1546. It is not known exactly when this chapel became disused. Canon Reade in his history of ‘The Chapelry of Hugill or Ings, in the ancient Parish of Kendal’, suggest that a chapel on the present site of the Church may have been built in or near the year of 1616. The building which exists today was built in 1743.

 

Mislet

In 1647, George Fox preached that Christian Truth was not to be found in churches but through God speaking to individual souls. His followers became known as the Society of Friends or Quakers. They refused to attend church services and became persecuted until the Toleration Act of 1689. Fox gained many supporters in Westmorland including several families in the area of Ings. A Quaker minute book records a women’s meeting ‘at Mislead’, the home of Robert Braithwaite and his wife Ann, who took the minutes at such meetings. A separate Meeting House was built in 1703 and was in use as such till 1821. There is also a Quaker burial ground at Mislet and a coffin rest, let into the wall.

 

High House Farm

High House Farm includes some of the oldest farmland in the area, since the Hugill Iron Age Settlement is in one of its fields, but we have no other evidence of occupation between the Iron Age and about the year 1500. A 1995 survey of the High House buildings by English Heritage suggests that its earliest parts date from the early 16th century. This fits with other evidence of a local expansion of population linked to the growing production of Kendal “cottons”. The Hugill open fields were a little lower down, between Grassgarth and Low House, and it made sense for new enclosed farms at this period to be developed on the higher ground on the edge of the common where the all-important sheep grazed.

 

The Mills of Ings

One result of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the Lancashire cotton industry was to affect Ings. The cotton mills needed bobbins, and the Lake District with its coppice woods and water power was well placed to provide them. In the Directory of 1829, four bobbin manufacturers were named in Ings. High Mill, now demolished, was upstream of Grassgarth farm.

Ings Mill, now a caravan park, was a few hundred yards downstream. It had a mill-wheel 30ft in diameter. At one time, Ings Mill employed 40 of whom 12 were apprentices who lived in the mill house. There was also a sawmill in Ings, now the Watermill Inn.