Somersham is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England.

The village may not be full of ancient buildings, but it possesses a rich heritage of recorded history.

There is a marker on the pavement in the High Street denoting the location of the October 1884 Greenwich Prime Zero meridian line.

There was once a railway station at Somersham connecting it to the towns of March and St Ives, as well as a short branch to Ramsey.

The manor of Somersham was held by the Abbots (later Bishops) of Ely who obtained it from the Anglo Saxon Ealdorman Byrhtnoth following his death at the Battle of Maldon in Essex in 991 AD.

It remained in royal hands until the aftermath of the English Civil War, when it was disposed of by Parliament.

There was a substantial manor house at Somersham with formal gardens dating to the 12th century and possibly earlier.

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.

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.