Earl Spencer of Althorp owned most of the parish and the adjacent areas. He sold some of this land to the railway and hence the village of Stantonbury was born as an overspill village of Wolverton. Stantonbury Village is now known as New Bradwell.

There were many rows of Railway houses built in New Bradwell. These housed the Railway workers who worked in Wolverton and surrounding areas. As rail travel has declined so the need for the workers has also. But as a consequence of this the workers left and the houses fell into disrepair and were vandalised. The decision was then made to demolish the distinctive streets of Railway houses in New Bradwell and build new, modern housing.

Finally there were only two rows of houses remaining to be demolished - Spencer Street. Fortunately they were saved in time by a preservation order and as the Milton Keynes Development Corporation now owned the houses it fell to them to decide what would be done with them.

At the same time (1976) there was a group of people, who wanted to live more communally. They got together to look for alternative accommodation alternative, that is, to the type of housing that was available from MKDC. The group liaised with the MKDC and Spencer Street was renovated and offered to the group as long as enough like minded people could be found to occupy them.

In May 1978 the first tenants of Spencer Street (Rainbow Housing Co-operative moved in. There are24 houses in Rainbow Co-operative which consists of 20 two- bedroomed houses and 4 four-bedroomed houses. One of the houses is used as a community house which accommodates an office, workshop, laundry facilities and a meeting area.

Rainbow members benefit from living communally because as well as the community house facilities there is a shared large grassed area on the south side of the street with a greenhouse, fruit trees, fire area, children's play area and lots of room for the annual summer party. There is also the added benefit of being able to actively choose who your neighbours will be when a house becomes vacant.

To be able to have all these benefits the members have to be prepared to put some time and effort into the day to day running. There is a monthly general meeting where the business of the meeting is discussed and sub group meetings i.e. land group, maintenance group and finance group to name a few. These groups are important as most of the lands, maintenance and finance have to be carried out by street members.

Rainbow Housing Co-operative holds an annual party to celebrate its birthday. The street is decorated and there is usually some music, lots of food and drink. All past members of the street are invited and present members can invite friends.

Rainbow is seen as a successful co-operative. There are other housing Co-operatives in Milton Keynes but none that have run for so long.

On 27th March 1992, Rainbow Housing Co-operative purchased all properties known as 1 to 24 (inclusive) together with the adjoining land from Milton Keynes Development Corporation.