In William Henry Ireland's 1830 work England's Topographer: Or A New and Complete History of the County of Kent Volume 4,[2] he writes Mottingham is a hamlet, lying partly in this parish (referring to Eltham), and partly in that of Chislehurst, at about a mile southward from Eltham church.

In the reign of Edward I., it passed as an appendage to the manor of Eltham, in the grant made by that king to John de Vesci; since, which, it has always been considered as part of the same, which at this time claims over the whole of this hamlet.

The bounds and extent of the hamlet of Modyngham are thus described in an ancient MS. remaining among registers of the bishop of Rochester: Memorandum, That the lordship of Modyngham begins at Readhilde, and extends to the wood of the lord bishop called Elmystediswood, towards the south; and to the field, called Charlesfield, towards the west; and to the woods and lands of the king in Eltham, towards the north-east."

At the beginning of the reign of Edward III., a family of the name of Legh was possessed of certain tenements, with the land and appurtenances belonging thereto, in Modingham and Chesilhurst; from one of that name it passed to Thomas de Bankwell, at whose decease in the 35th year of the same reign, it was found to be possessed of them and held of the king in gavelkind, as one of his manor of Eltham by service of 14s.

these premises were in the possession of Robert Cheeseman, of Lewisham and East Greenwich, who by marriage with Joane, daughter of Bernard Cavell of Chesilhurst, had considerably increased his property in this place.

After a long litigation in the court of Chancery, this seat with the estate was adjudged to an heir by the female line, to William Bowereman esq.

In the old house were the following dates and coats of arms; on the inside of a turret, 1560; on a chimney, 1561; and on an outward gate, 1635.In the seventeenth century Thomas Fuller recorded in The Worthies of England a curious incident that happened on 4 August 1585: ...in the Hamlet of Mottingham (pertaining to Eltham in this county) in a Field which belongeth to Sir Percival Hart.

The compasse of the hole was about eighty yards, and so profound, that a sounding line of fifty fathoms could hardly find or feel the bottom.The cause of the incident, referred to as a "marvellous accident" at the time, was then unknown, and it is likely that a sinkhole had developed.

In the 1880s the West Park estate, housing intended for the middle class, was developed and St. Andrew's church was built between the station and the village.

The pub closed in 2013 and was acquired by German global discount supermarket chain Lidl, who tried and failed to obtain permission to develop the site.

[15] Mottingham village contains a sign depicting Eltham College within the branches of a tree, a cricket bat and ball (making reference to W G Grace) and the date AD 862.

[24] African American boxer Frank Craig trained at the Prince of Wales for the bout he ultimately lost to Australian Dan Creedon in 1895.

[25] In 1946 Woolwich Council built the Coldharbour Estate to the east of Mottingham Road, primarily to provide accommodation for local people made homeless by the Blitz.