The village is located 6 miles (10 km) south-east of Gravesend, and just south of Watling Street, the Roman road from Dover to London.

[16] A 15th century hall house in Sole Street, that was threatened with demolition in 1970, has been dismantled and re-erected at the Weald and Downland Living Museum.

The village was also linked to its namesake HMS Cobham, a Ham-class minesweeper which was an active Royal Navy vessel between 1953 and 1966.

[23] Cobham is served by Sole Street railway station, on the Chatham Main Line which runs from Gillingham to London Victoria via Bromley South.

Cobham has associations with Charles Dickens, who used to walk out to the village:[24] he set part of The Pickwick Papers in The Leather Bottle pub.

[27] The Hon Ivo Bligh, the first English cricket captain to attempt to recover The Ashes from Australia, became the 8th Earl of Darnley in 1900, taking over the family home of Cobham Hall.