Ingersoll

Cheese made Ingersoll famous: in 1866 the town showed a mammoth 7,300-pound wheel at the New York State Fair, then shipped it across the Atlantic to England. The cheese museum tells that story today, while walkable streets and good value keep the town growing. Ingersoll sits on the Thames River just north of Highway 401, between Woodstock and London. The Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum on Harris Street re-creates a 19th-century cheese factory and is the hub of the Oxford County Cheese Trail, and the town has more than 20 parks, the oldest of them Victoria Park, opened in 1869.

Thomas Ingersoll was granted Oxford Township in 1793, and his sons came back in 1818 to lay out the hamlet beside the creek. Ingersoll became a village in 1852 and a town in the 1860s. The first cheese factories in Canada opened in Oxford County in the 1860s, the Canadian Dairymen's Association was founded in Ingersoll in 1867, and James Harris's factory made the mammoth cheese of 1866, shown at the New York State Fair in Saratoga before it was sold in England.

The 2021 census counted 5,467 homes in Ingersoll. About seven in ten are single detached houses, about one in seven are semi-detached or row houses, and about one in nine are in apartment buildings under five storeys. Nearly a third were built in 1960 or earlier and about a quarter between 1961 and 1980. About one in five were built between 1981 and 2000, about one in six between 2001 and 2015, and about one in fourteen between 2016 and 2021. The town grew by 7.3% between the 2016 and 2021 censuses, to 13,693 people.

Highway 401 runs along the south of Ingersoll, with an exit at Highway 19. London City Hall is about 41 km away by road, a drive of about 35 minutes, and Woodstock City Hall about 16 km, a drive of about 18 minutes. VIA Rail trains stop at Ingersoll station, Middlesex County Connect buses link the town with London, Woodstock and the Middlesex towns, and Highway 19 runs south to Tillsonburg.

The Ingersoll Cheese and Agricultural Museum at 290 Harris Street, opened in 1977 in Centennial Park, has a re-created cheese factory, the Ingersoll Sports Hall of Fame and the town's cycling hub, and Centennial Park also has a campground. Victoria Park, the town's first park, opened in 1869, and the Victoria Park Community Centre is at 355 Wellington Street. The Ingersoll District Memorial Arena is at 97 Mutual Street, the Fusion Youth Centre at 121 Thames Street North, and the Ingersoll Creative Arts Centre at 125 Centennial Lane. The Ingersoll Theatre of Performing Arts stages shows in the former Park Place Theatre, and the Ingersoll Pipe Band, formed in 1910, is one of the oldest in Canada.

• Royal Roads Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the middle of town, including Thames Street South, Harris Street and Oxford Street, on King Street East.
• Laurie Hawkins Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the west side, including Kendell Lane and Metcalfe Street, on Innes Street.
• Harrisfield Public School — JK to Grade 8. The public school for the south and east, including Thomas Street and Clark Road East, on Caffyn Street.
• Ingersoll District Collegiate Institute — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school for Ingersoll, on Alma Street in Ingersoll.
• Oliver Stephens Public School — Grades 1 to 8 in French immersion. The public French immersion school for Ingersoll, on Fyfe Avenue in Woodstock; it also has an English program.
• St. Jude's Catholic School — JK to Grade 8. The Catholic elementary school for Ingersoll, on Caffyn Street in Ingersoll.
• Holy Family French Immersion Catholic School — SK to Grade 8 in French immersion. The Catholic French immersion school for all of Oxford, on Oxford Street in Woodstock.
• St. Mary's Catholic High School — Grades 9 to 12. The Catholic secondary school for Ingersoll, on Juliana Drive in Woodstock.
• Woodstock Collegiate Institute — Grades 9 to 12. Thames Valley's public French immersion secondary school, on Riddell Street in Woodstock.