Brown Knoll commands the skyline on the eastern border of the civil parish, with South Head and Mount Famine to the north-east.

Immediately south of the village, brook and parish border is Eccles Pike, an almost-conical hill, partly owned by the National Trust.

The boundary of the Peak District National Park runs up the middle of Stubbins Lane and part of Maynestone Road, before crossing down into the valley and over Otter Brook, towards Wash.[citation needed] Chinley railway station has a single island platform on the trans-Pennine Hope Valley Line between Sheffield and Manchester Piccadilly.

It is one of only two stations between Stockport and Sheffield where East Midlands Railway express trains stop in peak hours.

The route of the Peak Forest Tramway (in use from 1796–1923), an early horse-and-gravity-powered railway, runs along the southern edge of Chinley near the Black Brook.

[4] A King's Mill stood alongside the Black Brook in Chapel Milton for around 700 years, but was destroyed in 1946 to allow construction of a water treatment facility for Ferodo.

A small cattle market was developed on the south side of the railway, near the station, in the early 19th century by a local farmers' co-operative society.

It was conducted by Brady & Son of Stockport, who could access it conveniently from Tiviot Dale station on the Midland Railway.

A Warwickshire and England leg-break bowler who dismissed Don Bradman in his final Test innings, he died in Chinley aged 68.