Top five reasons to retire to Chinnor

You’ll find everything you need on a daily basis in Chinnor including a traditional family butcher’s shop selling handmade sausages, locally sourced meat and recipe specials. The bakery and café offers an excellent selection of breads, cakes, pastries and freshly made sandwiches along with gluten free options and, for your supermarket shop, there’s a branch of the Co-op and a convenience store/off-licence in Chinnor. If you need curtains, blinds or soft-furnishings, the village is home to an interiors store that makes made-to-measure using quality fabrics. Just outside Chinnor is a flower farm selling bouquets and floral arrangements as well as flowers for special events. For a wider range of shops, both Thame and Princes Risborough have plenty to tempt you to indulge in a little retail therapy.  

Living in Chinnor means being close to some of the country’s most scenic landscapes. Chinnor Hill Nature Reserve, managed by the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust, provides panoramic views across the Vale of Aylesbury.  It’s worth taking a look at The Chinnor and Bledlow Cross, a chalk figure cut into the hillside, which is visible for miles across the vale. If you enjoy walking or cycling, but prefer a level walk to a hill climb, the disused railway path towards Thame is popular with dog-walkers, ramblers and cyclists.

For those who prefer slightly more challenging walks both the Ridgeway and the Chiltern Way pass Chinnor. The Ridgeway, known as Britain’s oldest road, is a national trail which starts at the World Heritage Site of Avebury and follows a ridge of chalk hills for 87 miles to reach Ivinghoe Beacon lying northwest of London. Following a route used since prehistoric times, a section of the Ridgway passes through the wooded hills of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. You can join the Ridgeway at Chinnor and walk to Princes Risborough, an 11.5 mile round trip – though if you choose the day when the heritage trains are running, you’ll be able take a steam train back from Princes Risborough to Chinnor. 

The Chiltern Way is another long-distance footpath which passes through the Chiltern Hills. This circular trail passes through parts of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire – and there’s a section from Bledlow Ridge to Chinnor with well-marked routes suitable for walkers of all abilities. 

Whether you’re travelling for leisure or pleasure, visiting family and friends or having them visit you, you’ll find that Chinnor is well placed for the accessing the M40 motorway at junction 6. The M40 provides links with London, the M25 and Birmingham and, via the M25, with London’s Heathrow airport. 

If you’re driving cross-country to or from Chinnor through the Chilterns and the Vale of Aylesbury, the A40, A4010 and B4009 are on hand. Thame, Princes Risborough and Watlington are only about 15 minutes by road, Great Missenden and High Wycombe are about 25 minutes away, whilst Aylesbury, Tring and Marlow can usually be reached within 35 minutes. If you’re heading for a day out or for some retail therapy, you could drive to Maidenhead and Henley-on-Thames within about 45 minutes.

Whilst there’s no operational mainline station in the village other than the heritage Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway, it’s possible to drive or take a bus to Princes Risborough station, about four miles away, and catch a Chiltern Railways’ train to Aylesbury, Banbury or Birmingham New Street or to London Marylebone, with a journey time of around 50 minutes. From Haddenham and Thame Parkway, about seven miles from Chinnor, there are rail services to Oxford and London Marylebone.

Local buses provide links with Thame, Princes Risborough, High Wycombe and the local villages between although services can be limited in the evenings and on Sundays.