This neighbourhood is part of the village of Cobham, which is located 6 miles south-east of Gravesend. The village is situated in a Conservation Area, and hence there has been limited development here, enabling the quintessentially rural feel of the neighbourhood to be maintained. The detached houses, boasting driveways and large gardens, are beautifully surrounded by expansive fields, and are located just a short walk away from the local Ship Inn pub. If you are looking for a busy environment, with lots of shops and amenities, then the neighbourhood of Cobham & Shorne may not be for you; however, what it lacks in services, it more than makes up for with its proximity to not one, but four country parks! In this neighbourhood, you have the delight of being surrounded by greenery, making it a very calm, tranquil, and idyllic place to live when compared to other nearby built-up areas. And with its proximity to the nearby station of Sole Street, with trains from here taking just an hour to London Victoria, it is no wonder why residents want to keep this neighbourhood to themselves!

One of the most historical buildings in this neighbourhood is Cobham Hall, which is located on a site that has been occupied by a manor house since the 12th Century; the building is Grade I listed, and is surrounded by 150 acres of parkland. As successive individuals have owned this building, they have introduced new features, such as an attic storey in 1767, an organ in 1778, and a library in 1817. The Hall was retained by the Earls of Darnley until 1957 before it became home to an international boarding and day school for girls aged 11-18. Due to the historical value of the Hall, it opens up for a few days of the year for members of the public to visit.

Cobham has strong links with Charles Dickens, who used to enjoy leisurely walks around the village. He appreciated this landscape so much that his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was partly set in this neighbourhood. Did you also know that Cobham Hall has been used as a film set for the film Wild Child, and the TV adaptation of Bleak House?

Furthermore, the Hall, which is now home to an international boarding school, educated many notable and influential women, including Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s first female billionaire, and Mishal Husain, a BBC news presenter.

The one downside of this neighbourhood is the centrality of the M2/A2 roads; they run through the middle of the country parks, which can be seen to disrupt the natural feel of the area. Whilst this may cause noise and air pollution in certain parts of the park that are in closest proximity, due to the large expanses of green open space, local people choose to use the space away from the road, hence finding that the presence of the road doesn’t really affect them.

Due to the protected status of this neighbourhood as a Conservation Area, there are no plans for development within the immediate area. However, concerns have been raised over the local council’s development ambitions. While brownfield lands are supposedly being prioritised for these projects, the potential for spillover onto Green Belt land has raised a few eyebrows. In fact, locals in the borough have already begun campaigning against controversial proposals set on Green Belt land. Gravesham Council in 2020 began exploring the possibility on developing new homes on green sites, which could deliver a whopping 3,700 homes on protected areas. Locals and community organisations criticised the proposals as they claim that brownfield sites that could be developed were not included in the list by the council.