Pegwell Bay is a natural harbour on the part of the coast nearest to the Continent, and consequently, Ebbsfleet was the focus of three important arrivals in English history: Julius Caesar’s first invasion of England in 54 BC, then Hengist and Horsa in 449 AD, said to have led the Anglo-Saxons in their conquest of Britain; and lastly Augustine of Canterbury in 597 AD, who converted much of England to Christianity.

[2] A fleot is a creek and Eopwine is a Germanic personal name; the modern Ebbsfleet may have developed from Eoppa/Eobba, a short form of this name.

Bede wrote in his Ecclesiastical History: "On the east of Kent is the large Isle of Thanet containing, according to the English way of reckoning, 600 families, divided from the other land by the river Wantsum, which is about three furlongs over, and fordable only in two places, for both ends of it run into the sea.

In 1884, St Augustine's Cross was erected on the lane between Cliffsend and Sevenscore to commemorate his first sermon in Kent.

On 29 November 2017, archaeologists from the University of Leicester, led by Honorary Research Professor Andrew Fitzpatrick, announced that during the excavation they had done at Ebbsfleet, fortifications had been found.