Notable buildings in the hamlet include the remains of the twelfth century Boxley Abbey, the Hospitium or Boxley Abbey Barn, the fifteenth century gatehouse chapel of St Andrew's, the headquarters of the Kent Wildlife Trust at Tyland Barn, and Kent Life open-air museum.

It was well-known for a relic called the Rood of Grace, a wooden cross with a Jesus figure that was said to move and speak.

[4] In 1538, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a commissioner sent by Thomas Cromwell examined the Rood of Grace and declared it fake, pointing out the levers and wires that enacted the movement.

[7] Thomas Cromwell biographer Diarmaid MacCulloch notes that moveable parts, "for devotional and not fraudulent purposes", were a feature of religious statuary at the time.

[11] The building is on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register[12] and is included as part of the Scheduled monument that covers Boxley Abbey.

[15] It sits 275m south-west of Boxley Abbey's inner gatehouse and most likely served people living or staying outside the boundary, and those not permitted within, such as women and the poor.

[18] Tyland Barn is a nature reserve that showcases the various habitats across the county of Kent, including a pond, grassland, chalk bank, shingle beach, scrub and hedges.

It opened in 1985 on the site of Sandling Farm, which was part of the Cobtree Manor Estate bequeathed to the people of Maidstone by Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake in 1964.

Kent Life is one of the last places in England where hops are grown, harvested, dried and packed in a traditional oast house.

The site of Smythe's Megalith and the White Horse Stone, one of which remains, sit on Sandling's northern border, east of Blue Bell Hill.

[33] Cuckoo Woods, which lies between the hamlet and neighbouring Penenden Heath, is a sweet chestnut coppice recognised as ancient woodland.