COBHAM, a village and a parish in North Aylesford district, Kent. The village stands on Watling-street, 1¼ mile NE of Sole-street r. station, and 4 SSE of Gravesend; has a post office under Gravesend; was the scene of Pickwick's ludicrous antiquarian discovery; possesses still the "clean and commodious ale-house, " to which Mr. Tupman retired from the world; is much frequented by visitors from London; was once a market-town, and still has a fair on 2 Aug. The parish comprises 3, 096 acres. Real property, £5, 839. Pop., 864. Houses, 170. The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged, from early times, to the great family of De cobham; passed by marriage, toward the end of the 14^th century, to Sir John Oldcastle, who assumed the title of Lord Cobham in right of his wife; passed again by marriage, soon afterwards, to the Brookes, who also bore the title of Lords Cobham; went, by attainder, in the first year of James I., to the Crown; was granted to the Stewarts, Earls of Lennox; and descended, in the early part of last century, to John Bligh, Esq., who was created Earl of Darnley. Cobham Hall, the Earl of Darnley's seat, consists of a centre and two wings; is partly a Tudor brick structure of 1582-94, and partly a renovation and addition by Inigo Jones; gave entertainment to Elizabeth and Charles I.; and contains a very rich collection of pictures, and a large antique bath of r ed oriental granite. The yard contains-chariot, alleged to have been that in which Elizabeth travelled, but really not older than the time of William III. The park is 7 miles in circuit; has much diversity of hill and dale; contains a heronry and a large stock of deer; and includes an elevation, called William's hill, commanding a fine view, and crowned by a mausoleum, built in 1783, at a cost of £9, 000, but never used. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester. Value, £391. Patron, the Earl of Darnley. The church is partly early English, partly late decorated; and contains a remarkable assemblage of brasses and other monuments. A chantry for seven priests was founded, contiguous to the churchyard, in 1387, by Sir John de Cobham; and some fragments of it still exist. An alms-house, called a college, was founded, on the site of the chantry, in 1598, by the executors of Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham; forms a quadrangle, containing twenty lodging-rooms and a chapel; and has an endowed income of £220.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))