It is about a mile northeast of the town centre and north of the M20 motorway, and contains the 12th-century church, St Mary's.

From The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 7, (Edward Hasted, originally published by W Bristow, Canterbury, 1798): "KENNINGTON IS the adjoining parish, northward from Ashford, and was so called, most probably, from its having antiently belonged to some of the Saxon kings during the heptarchy.

THE PARISH is situated in a healthy country, being for the most part a gravelly, though not an unfertile soil, not much more than a mile from Ashford, close to the west side of the high road from Canterbury, which is joined by that from Faversham, which runs along the opposite side of the parish, and joins the former a little beyond Burton.

It is watered by two small streams which rise northward of it, the one at Sandyhurst, the other near Eastwell park; the former running by Bybrooke, where it is called Bacon's water, and the other at the opposite part of the parish, by Clipmill and Frogbrook, near Wilsborough lees, into the river Stour, which flows along the eastern side of the parish.

At the 2021 UK census,[9] Kennington had a population of 10,900 (59,597,500 people in England and Wales), of which Female 52.1% and Male 47.9%.