Southborough Common is a rare historic landscape surviving from the Saxon period and probably with its origins much earlier in the prehistoric period. The land was formerly part of the manor of South which was part of the Lowry of Tonbridge Castle. Before 1066, the area formed one of the dens of the manor of Wrotham which belonged to the archbishops of Canterbury.

In 2017/18 a historic landscape assessment was carried out to identify surviving archaeological features. Over 100 features such as hollow ways, ditches, banks, platforms and sunken areas were observed across Southborough Common. Together with the veteran trees and the historic buildings which ring the Common these tell the story of how the landscape has evolved and how it has been used in the past.(1)

Dr Nicola R. Bannister, 2018, Southborough Common, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Historic landscape and archaeological assessment (Unpublished document). SKE53373.