[8] Cobham is an ancient settlement whose origins can be traced back on the ground through Roman times to the Iron Age.

Although much altered and extended in the 19th century, the church preserves a Norman tower and is a Grade I listed building (the highest architectural category).

The community met some success, with 11 acres (4.5 ha) cultivated, six houses built, winter crops harvested, and several pamphlets published.

[15] Cobham is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) from Brooklands and played host to associated and its own aviation and motoring activity in the 20th century.

In World War II, after a major aircraft factory, Vickers-Armstrongs, at Brooklands was bombed by the Luftwaffe on 4 September 1940, with heavy loss of life and many more injured, the Vickers Experimental Department was quickly dispersed to secret premises on the Silvermere and Foxwarren Park estates along Redhill Road.

Vickers had numerous other wartime dispersed depots locally and those within the boundaries or whose nearest village was Cobham included Corbie Wood and Riseholme (on Seven Hills Road), Conway Cottage and Norwood Farm.

Most notable was a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter which flew low over Brooklands apparently in trouble and crashed at Cobham on 16 March 1944; the pilot survived and little else was published of this incident.

[17] After the war, Vickers' Experimental Department continued to use two of the Redhill Road sites (now known as 'Foxwarren') and built aircraft prototypes there such as the Viscount airliner and Valiant V-bomber, until it moved back to the main factory at Brooklands in the late 1950s.

From 1972 to 2011 Cobham Bus Museum occupied an ex-aircraft hangar (used mainly by Vickers-Armstrongs as a machine shop) next to Silvermere golf course in Redhill Road.

Cobham fits into a triangle between the River Mole to the south, the A3 to the north and a borderline for the most part on the nearside of the (New) London to Guildford railway line to the southeast – directly west of Oxshott.

The longstanding built-up areas resemble the adjacent fertile east banks of the Mole such as at landscape garden Painshill Park on free-draining gravel topped with layers of alluvium.

This contrasts with the steep west bank, acidic sandy heath, which underlies the highest land on all the outskirts, residual outcrops of the Bagshot Sands (Formation).

The present house was completed in 1873 by his nephew, Charles Combe, to a design by Edward Middleton Barry:[27] It has now been divided into apartments.

The River Mole provides a setting for the red brick water mill, constructed in the late 18th century and once part of a much larger complex.

In 1986 the freehold of the mill was taken over by the Thames Water Authority who, as part of their flood control expenditure rebuilt the weirs nearby.

The building was restored to full working order by the volunteers of the Cobham Mill Preservation Trust, and first opened to the public in 1993.

[40] It was used by a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft battery during World War II and in peacetime returned to use as a Scout camp site.

During the 1990s some 3,000 additional trees were planted, and more recently an all-weather barn and an artificial, but realistic, caving complex have been added.

[45] Unlike neighbouring areas in Elmbridge, Residents and amenity groups[46] do not contest local elections in Cobham; occasionally independents have stood, such as in a 2007 by-election.

A Cobham & Downside member on Elmbridge, Mike Bennison since 2005 also represents the next 3 stops up the line to London Oxshott Claygate and Hinchley Wood on Surrey County Council.

Following the formation of the Territorial Force in 1908, the village for recruiting, was granted to the 6th Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment which maintained a platoon from A Company.

Cobham & Stoke d'Abernon railway station, opened in 1885, is on the New Guildford line from London Waterloo.