Besides a
Palaeolithic axe discovered in Victoria Road and seen as a chance glacial find, there is no record of prehistoric finds from the town.
Roman remains are limited to stray finds of pottery. Early and Middle
Saxon Ramsey remains elusive. The name Ramsey derives from the
Old English hramsaēg meaning '
wild garlic island'. The early history of the town is obscure. The
Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Ramsey. This may be either because it was part of Bury or because it belonged to the abbey that, at that time, enjoyed royal privileges. Throughout the
Middle Ages Ramsey remained a small market town serving the abbey and never developed into a borough. The original settlement probably developed outside the abbey, along Hollow Lane. By 1200 the town had grown enough to be granted a weekly market held at the junction of High Street with the Great Whyte and, later, an annual fair held at the green by the church. During the Middle Ages, the Great Whyte was a navigable canal that ran along what is now the road. It was
culverted by 1854 with a brick tunnel, giving the town its characteristic wide main street. Properties along Great Whyte appear to represent the secondary (post-Mediæval) development of the town. Archaeological excavations have shown that this area was wet during the mediæval period due to the presence of the fen. A fire occurred at Little Whyte in 1636 which destroyed some 15 tenements. A second fire in 1731 destroyed a great part of the High Street. In 1774
Lord Orford visited Ramsey during his voyage around the Fens. By the time of the estate map, the village had expanded along the Great Whyte and along the western end of the High Street by progressive infilling of plots. Later editions of the OS Maps up to the 1970s present a similar picture. Since the 1970s progressive increase in the size of the population has prompted development around the town and along Bury Road. The limits of the town of Ramsey and the village of Bury to the south are not clearly defined, with modern housing estates spreading across the urban boundary. The mediæval economy was dominated by garden produce, cloth trade and alehouse keeping. Fisheries also played an important part in the fen economy, along with livestock. Throughout the Middle Ages, the waterways of the fenland formed commercial transport routes that ran through the heart of the region.
Enclosure of land was piecemeal and prompted by the abbey. After the dispersal of the estates of the abbey into lay hands in the second half of the 16th century, enclosure at Ramsey and neighbouring parishes gathered momentum. Systematic drainage of the Great Level from the 17th century increased the area for hay and pasture which was progressively divided and allotted. The remaining
common lands were
enclosed by Act of Parliament in 1801. On the evening of 31 January 1941, the German spy
Josef Jakobs parachuted into the Ramsey area, landing near Dovehouse Farm. Jakobs broke his ankle during his descent and was unable to move from his landing site. The next morning at around 8:30 a.m. Jakobs fired his pistol into the air to attract attention. Two local farmers (Charles Baldock and Harry Coulson) were passing by, heard the shots, and found Jakobs lying on the ground under his camouflage parachute. The farmers summoned the local
Home Guard, who took charge of Jakobs. The German spy was caught wearing his flying suit and carrying British currency, forged papers, a radio, and a German sausage. Jakobs became the last person to be executed at the
Tower of London. ==Governance==