The mansion and outbuildings incorporate remains of a former monastery, the Abbey of St Mary de la Pré (the suffix meaning "in or of the Meadow"), near the River Nene 1 mile (1.6 km) south south-east of the centre of Northampton.

It was founded as a nunnery about the year 1145 devoted to the congregation of the major Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, France.

[citation needed] The Abbey's expansive sloping grounds are a nationally protected Wars of the Roses battlefield, as a one-time site of the advance of the Yorkists during the Battle of Northampton (1460).

[1] At its founding the abbey was endowed with the 3,060 acres (12.4 km2) in its ancient parish "almost entirely" save, for example, two corn mills, a fulling mill and 10 acres of marsh-meadow of St James Abbey, Northampton:[2] Hardingstone and held the rectories (including glebe and tithe) at Earls Barton,[1] Great Doddington,[1] and Fotheringhay,[1] appointing stipended (salaried) vicars on a perpetual basis from 1224.

After much later use and alteration as a private residence and in World War II service, the house and its cluster of outbuildings which replaced the abbey in phased building works spanning the 16th to 18th centuries served as the Northamptonshire Record Office and the library of the related records society.

[4] One of three remaining Eleanor crosses of the twelve erected, an octagonal, slim, deeply carved tower featuring stone statues is at the south-west of the meadows and tree-lined grounds.

[5] The body of Eleanor of Castile, queen of Edward I, rested at the abbey on its journey from Lincoln to London in December 1290.

[8] In the north-west corner of the walled town depicted in John Speed's map of 1610 was the Cluniac priory of St Andrew founded by Simon de Senlis, Earl of Northampton the father of the founder of Delapré.

It is believed that many of the battle-dead were buried in the nuns' graveyard (now the walled garden), but there is no archaeological evidence to support this contention.

The present Delapré Abbey, standing in a fine park, has undergone so many alterations that it is not possible to give a connected history of its development, but it retains quite a considerable amount of ancient work.

In November 2006, NBC's planning committee approved an application to remove the bunding but successive administrations have to date not provided funds to perform the work – despite public concerns over the flooding.