The civil parish is located on the flood plain of the River Beult, and also includes Chainhurst and the hamlet of Wanshurst Green.

[5][4] The dense woodland and marshes of the Weald of Kent were littered with acorns and beech mast in autumn making ideal seasonal foraging ground for pigs.

The grants by Saxon kings for rights to these pannage areas were known as dens which later came to refer to the herders' camps and ultimately the settlements that grew up there.

[8] Marden Parish Council covered over a well opposite the village's Maidstone Road junction in 1899 and erected a pump.

[12] On 3 July 1944, a German V-1 flying bomb shot down by anti-aircraft fire landed on an army camp in Pattenden Lane, killing 11 and injuring eight.

In 2016, a section of the pipe from Gatehouse Farm, incorporating a concrete joint to facilitate a change in alignment, was relocated and put on permanent display at Marden Library.

There is local employment at the substantial industrial estate built north of the railway line on Pattenden Lane from 1950 which supplements traditional agricultural jobs, but many residents commute to work in London.

[8][16][4] In 1993, there was a substantial tyre dump fire at the Pattenden Lane industrial area that caused pollution of the River Teise.

The unimproved, natural grassland contains Ophioglossum, green winged orchid, Saxifraga granulata, Leucanthemum vulgare, Rhinanthus minor, and within a pond Hottonia palustris and bladder-sedge.