The civil parish has the village of West Lilling, and areas to the south known as Lilling Green. The first part of the name derives from
Old English of
Lillingas, meaning the ''place of Lilla's people
. The suffix Ambo
, also seen in the nearby parish of Huttons Ambo, is a Latin term usually denoting that the parish is made up of two villages sharing a common name: West and East Lilling (or Lillings Both''). West and East Lilling were both mentioned in the
Domesday Book with East Lilling being recorded as completely depopulated by 1625, though probably, most inhabitants had left by 1485. The fields in the parish, especially those around West Lilling were enclosed by 1769. The village of West Lilling consists of around 45 buildings, but the old village of East Lilling is now in the civil parish of Sheriff Hutton, although two listed buildings in the Lillings Ambo parish are labelled as
East Lilling. The village of West Lilling is some south of Sheriff Hutton, and north of
York. Land within the parish is largely agricultural, with various ponds acting as a good reserve for
great crested newts, one of a handful of sites in Ryedale where they still thrive. The River Foss flows through the parish (from west to south-east) and in the 18th century, the river was canalised in an effort to make it navigable to Sheriff Hutton Bridge (which despite its name, is in the parish of Lillings Ambo). The meandering of the river before it was canalised, allowed for it to be forded in several places in the parish. In 2020, a leaky dam water storage project was approved for of land surrounding the river in the south of the parish. The scheme would see a long bund being built with a concrete substructure which would trap the floodwater, and release it slowly at a rate of . The long-distance walks, the
Centenary Way, the
Ebor Way, and the Foss Walk, all pass through the Lillings Ambo. The nearest railway station used to be at on the
York to Scarborough line, however this closed in 1930, and the nearest railway station is now in . ==Local authority==