The name is recorded in the Domesday Book and is thought to derive from 'Owl-coomb':[2] 'coomb' (pronounced 'coo-m') meaning 'a deep little wooded valley; a hollow in a hill side' (Chambers Dictionary) in Old English.

A number of Palaeolithic hand-axes have been found to the east of Great Tong Bank, and are the result of solifluction over the last 70,000 years from an earlier river system.

A later Roman occupation site lay to the north, when excavated, two timber buildings, one of sill-beam construction, were recorded.

[3] The old village hall was dismantled and re-erected at the Museum of Kent Life, Sandling, having been made redundant by the construction of a new building.

It includes monuments of the St. Leger family, the Marquess and Marchioness of Ormonde, and Lady Sarah Wandesford, daughter of the Earl of Carrick.