Somersham, United Kingdom

There was a substantial manor house at Somersham with formal gardens dating to the 12th century and possibly earlier. A Tudor palace was constructed over the mediaeval building by Bishop James Stanley, of Ely, under Henry VII. John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, a diplomat for Mary, Queen of Scots, came to Somersham and Fenstanton as a prisoner of Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely in 1571 and wrote about a deer hunt in the park. In September 1588, a survey of the property was made, naming several rooms in house and noting a bridge from the moated house to the park. The estate came to the crown. In 1604, anticipating a visit, James VI and I wrote to the keeper Sir John Cutts requesting that he stock the park. By the time the Hammond family came into possession of the palace site in the late 17th century, the buildings were in a poor state of repair. They were pulled down in the middle of the 18th century.

In the latter part of the 14th century, the church in Somersham was a living in possession of the English Cardinal and papal courtier Adam Easton and he relied on its wealth until his death in 1397.

During the 18th century there was a Spa just outside the town that was actively promoted by one of the royal surgeons. James Hammond, an elegiac poet who died in 1742, was born and brought up in Somersham; his work remained popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, being reprinted several times, but is no longer well known today.