This work, first published in 1853, grew from a paper describing the crossing of two Roman roads at Cambridge, and the small Roman fort at Grantchester. However, other Roman sites were added to the investigation, and the book came to encompass all the Roman and other ancient roads of Cambridgeshire, as well as the locations where Roman coins and other remains had been found. The author, Charles Cardale Babington (1808-95), is best remembered as the pupil and assistant of John Stevens Henslow and as his successor in the chair of botany at Cambridge. However, Babington was also keenly interested in archaeology, and this fascinating work of local history is the first substantial account of Roman Cambridgeshire, describing not only the courses of the various roads but also finds such as the Roman villa at Comberton, the Roman cemetery at Trumpington, and large numbers of individual coins and other artefacts.
