being a 96-kilometer floodplain irrigated by the Padsan and its latticework of estuarine tributaries, almost completely encircled by mountains to the south, east and north. An exploration of the built heritage of Dingras starts in the town centre, with its magnificent church ruins and the adjacent convento and atrio.

Augustinian missionaries listed Dingras in 1985 as a parish under the patronage of San Jose (Saint Joseph) after been a visita (missin station) of batac from 1589. It was separated as a parish in 1589. With its own visita, Piddig. Thence it became the most important center missionary activity among the southeastern highlands of the  province, an area that comprised today’s modern town of Piddig, Carasi, Solsona, Marcos, banna and Nueva Era. A fort was built in the town as a base for the pacification of areas to the east. The town was also an encomienda of a Spanish woman, Maria Bermudez, who administered it in the name of the Spanish king. By the 1820s, the town’s renewed prosperity was much in evidence. There were to plazas in the Poblacion, the larger one being encircled by substantial houses of the town’s elite. A huge fire however destroyed most of the poblacion in 1838. Trough a decree in 1885, the provincial governor set aside one day of the week as market day, with Saturday reserved for Dingras, making the town the commercial center of the valley. Dingras by then was known as a rice granary of the province.

As an example of urban planning, the town of Dingras is quite an oddity. Although it does conform to usual layout of the town centre based on Spanish models, it seems to have expanded diagonally, the grid pattern of streets following the route of National Road from Laoag to neighboring Solsona.

An exploration of the built heritage of Dingras starts in the town centre, with its magnificent church ruins and the adjacent convento and trio.

a brick church built in the late 1670s collapsed in the earthquake of 1710. Later structures burned down with the rest of the town in 1838. The present, monumental church and convent were begun by Fr. Damaso. Vieytez during his term which begun in 1849. This was the most ambitious of Fr. Vieytez’ projects; he initiated the building of roads and bridge and prevous to dingras, he had built the stone watchtowers in Santiago and San Esteban, Ilocos Sur. A fire deprived the church of its roof; both church and convent were notably renovated during the terms of Fr. Ricardo Deza (1879-1893) and Fr. Fidel Franco (1895-1898). The church and convent of dingras were destroyed by fire and earthquake in 1914, and again in 1931 (on the feast day of patron), and had to be abandoned , a smaller, concreted church was erected on the adjoining space, while the massive hulk of the old church attracted generations of tourists as a brooding ruin. However, there are ongoing efforts at rehabilitation, and mass has been celebrated in recent times back in the historic site.

The Dingras façade, together with those at Sarrat, San Nicolas and Santa Maria. (Ilocos Sur), and to lesser extent Bacarra, recalls the line of the 1760 Manila Cathedral (which design in turn can be traced to the church of Il Gesu in Rome). The impressive church, though badly battered, gives the interest tourist the best opportunity to study brick architecture in the province. Much of the brickwork has been exposed, because of the protective palitada (lime plaster) has crumbled; on some walls, it is possible to see holes meant to anchor the bamboo framework from where masons laid the bricks or toweled the plaster. Walking slowly along the sides, it is possible to observe the multi-layeredness of brick composing the walls, and also the variety of bricks: rectangles of different sizes, pie slices for the columns, and leaf-and-volute shapes for the Composite capitals. At the back of the façade, one can notice wooden girders through the brickwork, perhaps meant to serve as braces. By 1891, both church and convent and roofs of galvanized iron sheets, the government had banned brick tiles because of their weight and the danger of falling on pedestrians during storms or earthquakes.

The old convent, now a school, precedes the church in a configuration unusual for Ilocos Norte.It is interesting to note that in many Ilocano towns, a public plaza is usually located to one side of the church, possibly to isolate it from the threat of fire if such an event arises from the residential areas. At the head of the plaza is the municipal hall, a strange edifice with window opening with Moslem-style arches.

But what is most striking about Dingras is its amazing collection of colonial houses from the 19th and early 20th centuries, the most prominent of which is the Purugan residence, which is also one of the town’s most oldest, its exteriors bear the design of a residence typical of the period: segmental arches with marked keystones, ground floor walls terminating in a prominent cornice, a wooden second floor with ventanillas protected by turned wood balusters, paired capiz window and wide awnings. A delightful detail which appears in the corners of the second floor is a single baluster, big in proportion, which seems to carry the window sill, or pasamano.

Next to the Puruganan house is the Albano-Madamba residence, somber in appearance as its ground floor brick walls have already lost all its palitada coating and the second storey sports dark wood panels in between the gridiron of capiz inits sliding windows, not very typical is the disposition of the espejo window openings, the espejos on this house are found in between the main windows, suggesting a hint of movement in the otherwise bare facades.

Tucked behind hedges planted along Medina and Castro Streets is the Versoza residence. Uncoated brick floors carry the wooden upper storey replete with sliding window with capiz panels in diagonal disposition, below which are turned balusters enclosing the ventanillas.

Also along Castro Street is the Albano-Beltran recidence, strangely the only one existing among the heritage houses Dingras with an outdoor staircase. Set amidst a flowering garden filled with multicolored bougainvilleas, this small house has two-storeys and a quaint verandah framed by decorative latticework. Some of the turned barandillas on the second floor ventanillas seem to have been salvaged from older house as they contrast with the flat patterns of the ones found in the main façade of the house.

Airiness pervades the whole upper storey as air freely circulates through the large window and door openings and trough the latticework of the calados. The walls are painted white to contrast with the heavy wooden doors and the wide, polished floor planksHeritage buffs will have a grand time walking around the town proper where ancestral houses still abound,

The crunchy fried corn is sold salted or flavored with cheese and barbecue seasoning. Fried in large wood-fired vats, the cornik like the sweetened gourds and singkamas, are packed in plastic packets.

A walk along the national road will lead the visitors to a small monument of a woman named Josefa Llanes Escosda. Filipina girls scout all known for her as the founder of the Girl Scout of the Philippines. Escoda has a monument in the municipality because   she was born there in 1898. A staunch nationalist, she resisted the Japanese occupation and was imprisoned and eventually executed by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1943. Visitors who want to learn more about this remarkable Ilocana should visit the Josefa Llanes Escoda museum found near the town plaza.Another woman from Dingras who distinguished herself during the American colonial era is Enriqueta Guerrero de Peralta (1882-1940) , who worked hard for the recognition of women’s concerns by the government and campaigned actively for women’s suffrage in 1935

Visitors will have more than the façade of the church to delight them during the important church holidays. The old town has kept its many religious traditions including the annual lantern processions. The wooden image of the dead Christ processed around town on Good Friday carries with it an interesting story that has spanned several generations of the Madamba-Parado family who owns it. The image is believed by locals to be miraculous and is venerated in a small brick chapel dedicated to it. The image is so well loved by the locals  that it actually has a pet name. locals call the 200-year-old image Apo Lakay.On the road to San Nicolas are two brick cemeteries: the round catholic cemetery was built towards the second half of the 19th century, while the municipal one dates from the early American period. Many ancient tombstones and grave markers can be found here and heritage buffs into collecting was rubbings will find the cemeteries worth visitng.