Traces of a Roman villa have been found on its parish boundary with Stapleford. It has also been suggested that the village has moved site, the principal evidence being that the church is from the present village. Babraham was comparatively wealthy during medieval times due to its wool trade, with the highest tax returns in its hundred. In the late 16th century the manor was the principal seat of the great Elizabethan merchant and financier Sir Horatio Palavicino.Ian W. Archer, ‘Palavicino, Sir Horatio (c.1540–1600)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 26 Dec 2013 Between 1632 and the 19th century, the manor was owned by the Bennet, and later the Adeane, families, who lived in Babraham Hall. The Hall was built in 1833 by Henry John Adeane.
