The village name is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'stronghold in a gully'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as Soleberie.
There is a public house in Soulbury called The Boot. Its pub sign features a boot of the Duke of Wellington, but the tradition of the Soulbury Boot is much older than that. It is said that the Devil himself once came to the village, but the villagers came together to fight him off. One of them took his sword and cut off the Devil's foot and as it fell to the ground it turned to stone. The stone came to be known as the Soulbury Boot.
One of the ancient manors in the village is called Stockgrove Manor. In the 1980s a country club was opened in the manor, and it became known as Stocks, a popular meeting place for the rich and famous.