Baños de Cerrato is part of the larger municipality of Venta de Baños, just a few kilometers south of Palencia.

In Roman times, the area had many private villas dotting the landscape. In Roman times as under the Visigoths, this was an important grain-producing region.

San Juan de Baños is a Visigothic church, commissioned by the Visigothic king Recceswinth in 661 and whose solemn consecration ceremony is believed to have taken place on 3 January, 661. It has a consecration inscription over its entry.

The church was under the control of the Bishops of Palencia. The excavations that were carried out in 1956 and 1963 yielded a medieval necropolis of 58 tombs.