Spratton lies 3 miles from Brixworth and only 6 from Althorp. People have lived where the village now stands since the earliest of times. Entered as Spretone in the Domesday Book, three members of the French nobility had been given land in the area. 28 people and one slave lived in Spretone with six ploughs between them and two mills.
The agricultural community developed during mediaeval times around the church. St. Andrew’s is the oldest building in the village, probably with Saxon origins but enlarged in 1120 in the time of Henry I. It had been given to The Abbey of St. James in Northampton. Mentioned by Nicholaus Pevsner, the clock tower now with a peel of six bells displays architectural styles of four different centuries. The interior, restored under the auspices of Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1847, contains the interesting memorial to Sir John Swinford , died 1371. A link to America and to Sulgrave Manor is through Amphyllis Twigden, the great, great grandmother of George Washington, who was born in the parish and baptised in the 13th century font still used to this day.
Personages from the village include Thomas Butlin, the founder of the Northamptonshire iron industry, William Rhodes-Moorhouse, the first airman to win the VC and Emily Davison, the suffragette. Spratton was an “open” village, i.e. not aligned to major estates, whose architecture reflects rural life over the last 400 years. Lace making took place in cottages, as did outworking for Northampton’s shoe making industry. The Spratton Local History Society by arrangement will give guided tours for groups of the Church and village, see www.sprattonhistory.org