The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'Cerdic's clearing'. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Cerdeslai. It has been suggested that the village is the place mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Cerdicesleah, where King Cerdic and his son Cynric defeated the Britons in 527.
The village was originally a hamlet in the nearby parish of Crendon, though was established as a parish in its own right by the Bishop of Lincoln in 1458.