In 1895 during the sinking of a shaft for Catesby Tunnel a Romancinerary urn was found about south of Upper Catesby.
Village
In 1389 Upper Catesby was recorded as Overcatsby. It is a shrunken village. The modern hamlet has only a handful of 19th- and 20th-century houses, but is surrounded by numerous earthen features showing where cottages and the main village street had been. Most of the fields around the former village still have clear ridge and furrow marks from the ploughing of the medieval arable farming with an open field system divided into narrow strips.
Catesby House
Catesby House is a Jacobethancountry house about west of Upper Catesby. It was built in 1863 and enlarged in 1894. It includes 16th-century linenfold panelling said to come fromCatesby Priory, and 17th-century panelling, doorcases and a stair with barley-sugar balusters, all from the previous 17th-century Catesby House that was in Lower Catesby.
Catesby Tunnel
Catesby Tunnel is a disused railway tunnel on the route of the former Great Central Main Line. It passes about west of Upper Catesby and about east of Catesby House. The tunnel's north portal is about northwest of the hamlet, and its south portal is about north of Charwelton, just inside the southern boundary of Catesby parish. The Great Central Railway intended its Southern Extension to pass through Catesby parish in a cutting. However, the occupant of Catesby House, Henry Attenborough, owned much of the land in the parish and insisted that the line pass beneath it in a tunnel. T Oliver and Son of Horsham, the contractor to build the — section of the line, started the tunnel by sinking nine construction shafts in 1895, and completed the tunnel in 1897. The first Great Central services to use the tunnel were coal trains, which started running on 25 July 1898. The line opened fully on 15 March 1899. The tunnel is wide, high, long and has five air shafts. Four of the shafts are in Catesby parish and each has a diameter of. The fifth is in the neighbouring parish of Hellidon, and has a diameter of for greater airflow. About of material was dug out to make the tunnel. The tunnel, its portals and air shafts are all lined and faced with Staffordshire blue brick and a total of about 30 million bricks was used. On 4 January 1906 a rail on the Down track broke and derailed an afternoon express from to with about 50 passengers aboard. The train was travelling at about and tore up about of track before it came to a halt. All five coaches were derailed and the last coach fouled the Up track, on which a goods train was due. The crew of the express acted to protect their train: the driver placed a detonator on one rail of the Up track and the guard sounded the train whistle, both of which gave the crew of the approaching Up goods enough warning to stop short of the wreckage. British Railways closed the Great Central Main Line through the tunnel on 5 September 1966, and the track was lifted shortly thereafter. In recent years the tunnel has featured in numerous reopening proposals, one of which was as a possible route for HS2. Chiltern Railways have expressed an interest in reopening the route as far as Rugby or even Leicester. However, a proposal to convert it into a wind tunnel for testing Formula One cars was publicised in October 2014.
