Lower Catesby is beside the nascent River Leam, which rises about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south in the parish of Hellidon.

[2] The Domesday Book of 1086 records a manor of four hides at Catesby, and that one Sasfrid held it of William Peveral.

Robert de Esseby founded a priory of Cistercian nuns at Lower Catesby in about 1175.

[4] In the 1230s Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, committed his sisters Margaret and Alice to be nuns at the priory.

[4] In 1267 William Maudit, 8th Earl of Warwick died and his heart was buried at Catesby Priory.

Thomas Cromwell's commissioners inspected the priory in September 1535 and May 1536, and reported that the prioress and her nine nuns were of good faith and blameless character.

[4] In 1537 the Crown sold the remains of the priory to John Onley, who had at least part of the building turned into his family mansion.

[5] The present church also includes Jacobean woodwork from its 17th-century predecessor: a communion rail with barley-twist balusters,[5] and a pulpit and tester.