The village has been continuously settled at least since Saxon times and is recorded in the Domesday Book. Its parish church, St Mary's, was built in the early 12th century. Some fifty years later, a small priory was founded half a mile away on Redbourn Common, after the abbot of St Albans Abbey decided to consecrate the ground. Some bones had been found on the spot, reputed to be of St Amphibalus, the priest who had converted St Alban to Christianity.