Swanley is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks (district)

Sevenoaks is a local government district covering the western most part of Kent in England. Its council is based in the town of Sevenoaks. It was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, by a merger of the Sevenoaks Urban District, Sevenoaks Rural District and part of Dartford...

 District of Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is located on the south-eastern outskirts of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, north of Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks

Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...

 town. The town boundaries encompass the settlements of Swanley itself, Hextable

Hextable

Hextable is a leafy village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It lies to the north of the villages of Farningham, Otford and Eynsford, west of the villages of South Darenth and Horton Kirby and south of the village of Wilmington....

 (Hextable recently voted to become an independent parish council) and Swanley Village

Swanley Village

Swanley Village is a small village to the east of the town of Swanley in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England.Swanley Village was originally known as Swanley but with the arrival of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway line, specifically the junction between the Chatham Main Line and the...

. Swanley has a population of 20,986
In 1066, Swanley only consisted of a few cattle farms, surrounded in oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

, sycamore

Sycamore

Sycamore is a name which is applied at various times and places to three very different types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms....

 and ash (Fraxinus) woodland.
Because Swanley only consisted of a few homesteads,so it was not mentioned in the Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

.

The name Swanley developed from the Saxon term 'Swine-ley', "Ley" meaning a clearing in the woods and "swine" meaning pigs.