[1] The village is about 3 miles (5 km) from Northampton town centre, close to the A45 trunk road which heads east to Wellingborough and Peterborough.
The busy A45 also connects to junction 15 of the M1 London to Yorkshire Motorway by way of a flyover which eliminated a dangerous crossing of the main road.
[4] In the Domesday Book the settlement is referred to as Collingtrev or Colentreu,[5] Colen being Celtic for place and trev possibly meaning 'tree' or trough.
In 2006 its site was revealed when undergrowth was cleared back from the side of the road and the Parish Council decided to make a feature of it.
It runs roughly north to south, has a pub, The Wooden Walls of Old England, but no shops and leads nowhere in either direction.
It was incorporated into the Northampton Borough Council[10] area in the boundary changes of 1974[7] but in spite of this still retains its distinct village nature.
The village is, together with Collingtree Park, part of the two-member Nene Valley ward on the borough council, both Conservative held.
The village has a Primary School;[12] Church, St Columba (Church of England); pub, (The Wooden Walls of Old England) in the High Street; Collingtree Tennis Club[13] and Hilton Hotel and sports club in Watering Lane near the junction with the A45.
Collingtree Park Golf Club, with adjacent large modern houses, is just north of the village in the grounds of the demolished Grange, but access to this is from Windingbrook Lane and Rowtree Road in East Hunsbury, just off the A45.
A major urban extension of 2,000 houses, of which ca.35% would be affordable was proposed by Bovis Homes in July 2008 at the adjacent Collingtree Park and it is likely to begin construction in 2015.