In the Domesday Book of 1086, it is named Ewelle or Etwelle, and is recorded as having a manor house, five watermills, and about fifty dwellings around a small wooden Saxon church.

In 1163, the Knights Templar was granted the manor of Ewell by the crown in recognition of their role in the Holy Land, and the word Temple became prefixed to the village name.

In 1213 King John surrendered the crown to the Pope, and it is thought that this may have taken place either at the Preceptory in Temple Ewell, or possibly in Dover.

The two mills (which still stand today as private residences) produced flour, and supplied the English troops at Dover during the Napoleonic wars.

The railway station at Kearsney was built in 1861, linking Temple Ewell with Dover and London, and leading to an increase in population and prosperity.

Between 1940 and 1944, Temple Ewell was victim to several stray shells, which were fired at the Dover area across the English Channel from France during the Second World War.