Redbourn was a strategically positioned roman settlement along Watling Street and is famous locally as the scene of the first recorded cricket match in Hertfordshire in 1666. A well known stage coach stop, many of the old coaching inns are still pubs and the Bull is reputed to be haunted.
Nearby is the restored Redbournbury Mill, which features special events on open days. Redbourn is also home to the annual Hertfordshire County Show, which draws people to enjoy events, country foods and crafts.
The village has been settled at least since Saxon times and it is recorded in the Domesday Book. Around fifty years after its Norman Church ([St Mary's]http://www.stmarysredbourn.org/) was built, a small Priory was founded half a mile away on Redbourn Common, after the abbot of St Albans Abbey decided to hallow the ground: some bones had been found on the spot, reputed to be of St Amphibalus, the priest who converted St Alban to Christianity. To the southwest of the town just beyond the motorway is the site of an Iron Age hill fort called The Aubreys.
Redbourn featured prominently on an episode of the popular TV property programme Location, Location, Location on 5 August 2009. The presenter Phil Spencer was lavish in his praise for the village describing it as "quite possibly one of the cutest villages I've ever seen". He also commented on "the fantastic village green" and said that "People love it. People move here specifically because of the feel of Redbourn and all the amenities" Redbourn was, for a long time, the centre of a farming community and for a time had a successful watercress business on the River Ver's water meadows. Just south of the village, Redbournbury Mill, a recently restored watermill, produces flour.
Silk throwing was carried out at the steam driven Woollam's Mill near Redbourn Common. The mill was taken over by John Mangrove & Son and closed in 1938. At the outbreak of the World War II, Brooke Bond took over the silk mill. Whilst the factory was still open, a young gentleman in the village fell into a vat of jam and died. After a successful lobbying campaign by several school children in 2003, a memorial bench was unveiled to 'Sticky Joe'. After closing their factory in 1996 the old silk mill manager’s house (the Grade II listed Silk Mill House) was donated as the village museum, which opened in May 2000. The former silk mill site is now a housing estate. Local grocer Russell Harborough set up a jam making factory, which in 1956 was bought by Thomas Mercer Ltd, marine chronometer manufacturer. The site, just off the High Street, is now an industrial estate.
Old industries in the village included making straw plait and hat making — Redbourn Village Hall was formerly a straw hat factory
During the coaching era, Redbourn was known as the Street of Inns, boasting at least 25 pubs and inns at its peak, but in 1838 the opening of the railway from London to Birmingham, sounded the death knell of stage-coaching.
