The earliest origins of local administration known as parishes can be traced back to the seventh century but the earliest evidence we have about Pembury suggested that there was a village of Pepenbury here in the eleventh century.

The Local Government Act of 1894 transferred the civil functions of the Church vestries and other duties of certain appointed officers such as Overseers to the newly formed Parish Council and the first meeting of the Pembury Parish Council was held in the Pembury Board School on the 1^st January 1895. At that meeting the nine members of the Council laid down the foundation for an effective local government organisation in the Village and when they met ten days later Committees were set up covering Sanitation, Recreation, Footpaths and Rights of Way, Charities and Properties, Allotment and Finance.

Since that date the Parish Council has, in the interests of the Parishioners, consistently kept the village in the forefront of progress exercising its powers and responsibilities to the full as they have increased in number and widened in scope.