Archaeological evidence suggest the first human occupation was around 200,000 years ago. A hoard of 196 handaxes from the Acheulian era was excavated in 1962. This is now displayed in the British Museum. The name is believed to have developed from "Cucula's stone".[2]
The remains of a Roman villa were found under the church yard. The Saxons occupied the town and it became known as Cuckelstane. The church and parish was given by Æthelwulf, King of the West Saxons to the Cathedral church of St. Andrew, Rochester. The church contains much Norman architecture, and is unusual as it lies on a southeast–northwest axis. This gave rise to the rhyme, He that would see a church miswent / Let him go to Cucklestane in Kent.
In Tudor times the principal house in the town was Whorne's Place, erected on the river by Sir William Whorne, Lord Mayor of London in 1487. This was later owned by the Leveson family and most notably Sir John Leveson who was Lord Deputy Lieutenant of Kent. This was taken over by the Mashams, strong royalists who moved on to the Mote in Maidstone. The mansion was demolished in 1782 and only an outlying granary, now a house still bearing the name Whorne's Place, survives in 2011.
The only other manor in Tudor Cuxton was that of Beresse or Beresh, now known as Bush. It doesn't survive.
In 1610, William Laud was rector of Cuxton; he later became Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I and was executed by the puritans in 1645 because of his strong royalist loyalties.
On 10 August 2015, a gang smuggling guns into the UK were filmed by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) as they unloaded their illicit cargo near Cuxton Marina.[4] The gang were intercepted as they made their way to a second site, where they planned to bury the weapons; two of the gang were subsequently found guilty of gun smuggling.[5] The NCA described the haul of weapons and ammunition seized by its officers as the largest of its kind in the UK.[4]
