Gypsies gained their name from the commonly held belief that with their dark complexions and colourful clothing, they were Egyptians. It is now believed that their unique language, Romany, derives from Sanskrit which actually suggests Indian descent.
 
 There was much distrust and discrimination surrounding these people which to some degree simply reflecting the general concerns of the time about  'lawless' rogues and vagabonds wandering the country with no fixed place of settlement. 

An early reference to gypsies in Cambridgeshire can be found in C.H. Cooper's Annals of Cambridge which record payments in 1515 by the Borough of Cambridge 'for leading up of the Egypsyans to London to the King's Counseill' 

 Repeated legislation sought to prevent gypsies from entering the country. The most stringent, in 1562, declared that any gypsy born in England and Wales was not compelled to leave the country provided they quit their 'idle and ungodly life and company', but all others should suffer death and loss of lands and goods.

 Occasional references to gypsies appear in Cambridgeshire parish registers. In Stetchworth we find the burial on 27 October 1779 of 'Charlotta daughter of George and Martha, two of the People called Gypsies' and at Doddington the baptism pictured below:

9 April 1797 Seleh daughter of Edward and Rose Hern, Egyptians. [Cambridgeshire Archives: P56/1/2]

 The antiquary George Nathan Maynard of Whittlesford (c.1829-1904) writes in the early 1860’s of the Shaws; a noted gipsy family of Cambridgeshire. Moses Shaw, a reliable and wealthy man who ‘in token of his worldly substance prided himself in wearing upon his garments large and massive silver buttons to the admiration of all his followers’ 

 Moses' professed occupation was sieve making and rat-catching but his preference, being more lucrative, was playing the fiddle at feasts and fairs whilst his wife ‘Old Mimy' ran a stall selling small wares and gingerbread and telling fortunes.

Gypsy encampment beside the Shelford Road, Whittlesford, 1862. [Cambridgeshire Archives: R58/5/11]

 During the last century, a gypsy family by the name of Loveridge were regular visitors to the villages of Shepreth, Barrington, Orwell and Barton.  Among the parish records of Shepreth is correspondence from the 1960's between the vicar and the Gypsy Lore Society regarding Tilly Loveridge 'a remarkably friendly and well-liked traveller..she often had her breakfast in Shepreth Vicarage kitchen'

The Loveridge's encampment in 'Mr Dimmock's fields' Barton, captured around 1965. The family came to the village every year to help out with potato picking and other agricultural work.