[3] People lived at different sites in the village during the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age, with continuity into the Roman period.

A charter relating to Norton dating from AD 1007 is the earliest document to survive, recording its donation to the Abbey of St Albans and claiming that it had originally been given by Offa, King of Mercia, in the eighth century, together with Rodenhanger, a lost site said to lie together with Norton.

The manor appeared in the Domesday Book of 1086, when it was listed among the lands belonging to the Abbots of St Albans.

The records of the manorial courts, which date from AD 1244, give an extensive overview of the life of Norton's villagers during the medieval period.

Following the Dissolution of St Albans Abbey in 1539 the manor of Norton passed into private hands, but its manorial courts continued to record the activities of its villagers until 1916.

[citation needed] The new chapel was opened by Smith's daughter Zillah and her husband Mr J T Lean in 1934 as Norton Methodist Mission, and it was given a distinctive caravan-shaped pulpit.