The town is several centuries old and has witnessed both the growth and decline of the feudal system, the coming of the Danes and their settlement and then a cultural renaissance (known as the Bengal Renaissance) initiated by the British following the construction of the east Indian railway, along with subsequent industrial development.
Growth
There were three main phases in the process of urbanisation of Serampore:
The Pre-urbanisation phase (the period before 1755);
The Urbanisation phase (from 1755 to 1854); and
The Industrialisation phase (1854 to 1947).
Before the Mughal era, the region between the Saraswati and Hoogli rivers was a thriving local community. Various ruins of Hindu temples are still found in Serampore, such as:
Henry Martin's Pagoda,
The temple of Radhaballabhjeu in Ballabhpur (18th century),
The Ram-Sita temple in Sripur and
The temple of Gauranga in Chatra dating back to the 16th century.
Hari Sabha (Buttala)
Sashan Kali Mandir
Satimata Mandir, in B. P. Dey Street.
The Jagannath temple of Mahesh is dated to 1755. When Bengal came under the command of Sri Chaitanya's Vaisnavism in the fifteenth century, these places became pre-eminent as a Hindu pilgrim centre.
Raja Manohar Roy Zaminder of Sheoraphuli built the temple of Ram-Sita in Sripur in 1753, and his son Ram Chandra Roy then later dedicated the villages of Sripur, Gopinathpur and Manoharpur as devottara land in the service of the deity. Since then the temple was taken care by Raja Nirmal Chandra Ghosh and the 'Saraphuli Raj Debuttar Estate'. In present times, the temple and its premises fall under the surveillance of the 'Sheoraphuli Rajbari'.
It is probable that the name 'Srirampur' originated either from 'Sripur', 'Sri Ram' or both, or it could originate from 'Seetarampore' as there was a very famous
