The name of the community describes what it originally was – a green to which the people of what was then the borough of Wrotham went for recreation and Wrotham remains a village. There is also a view that "borough", which predates any borough council in the area, relates to the word barrow, possibly referring to the Roman remains near the station site. Its location at a crossroads with the old route from Gravesend to Hastings meant that inns were gradually opened. The Red Lion, founded in 1586, is now closed. The 1592 Black Bull became the Black Horse, then The Black Horse and Hooden, and recently The Black Horse again. The Bull of 1753 survives, but the Fox and Hounds and The Rock have turned into private housing. The 1878 Railway Hotel, later The Henry Simmonds, is now a Sainsbury's Localfood store. Great Comp, an early 17th-century house, is located in the parish of St Mary's Platt, one mile to the east of Borough Green. Its gardens, administered by a charitable trust, are open to the public. The London, Chatham and Dover Railway opened a line to Maidstone on 1 June 1874, and a station named Wrotham and Borough Green was built. Later the names were reversed to Borough Green and Wrotham, in line with the position of the station within Borough Green, and the fact that Borough Green had outgrown Wrotham. The River Bourne flows through the southern part of the parish. It once powered a paper mill at Basted.
Notable people
Catherine Crowe, novelist and playwright, was born Catherine Ann Stevens in Borough Green.
Richard Dixon, a chemist who has done notable work on the thermal and optical properties of matter, was born in Borough Green on 25 December 1930.
Richard Hearne, actor, comedian and writer, most famous as Mr Pastry a comical children's character, lived at Platt's Farm, Long Mill Lane in nearby St Mary Platt from the 1940s.
Eva McLaren, suffragist and writer, died at Great Comp Cottage in Borough Green.
The village and nearby communities are served by Borough Green Primary School. Borough Green had branches of two nationwide retail banks, both of which closed in 2017. Two supermarket chains remain, as do several independent retailers and teashops. There is a smaller store with a post office counter in the High Street.
