Chinnor is a large village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England, about 4 miles (6 km) southeast of Thame and close to the border with Buckinghamshire.

The site of an Iron Age settlement from perhaps the 4th century BC has been excavated on the Chiltern ridge in the southern part of the parish.

[1] A twin barrow on Icknield Way has been found to contain the weapons of a Saxon warrior that have been dated to the 6th century.

Chinnor's toponym may originally have meant the ora ("slope") of a man called Ceona.

[1] There are records of Chinnor existing in the reign of King Edward the Confessor, when the manor was held by a Saxon royal servant called Lewin.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records Lewin as still holding Chinnor, but soon afterwards it was in the hands of a member of the Norman de Vernon family.

However, in 1194 Walter de Vernon refused to help Prince John in France and all his lands were confiscated.

[1] In 1203 Chinnor and the neighbouring manor of Sydenham were granted to Saer de Quincy, who in 1207 was created 1st Earl of Winchester.

However, in 1215 the Earl took part in the baronial revolt against King John and his lands were confiscated.

In 1216 all of the Earl's lands were supposed to have been restored to him, but Chinnor was granted to Walter de Vernon's grandson Hugh de la Mere in exchange for two palfrey horses and a term of service at Wallingford Castle.

This made the de Ferrers family feudal overlords of two-thirds of Chinnor, which they retained until after 1517 when Walter Devereux, 10th Baron Ferrers of Chartley sold Chinnor to an Alderman of the City of London, Sir Stephen Jennings.

[1] Jennings immediately re-sold Chinnor to Richard Fermor of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire.

In 1667, Sir John's grandson Robert Dormer, also MP for Aylesbury, bought the Zouche manor that had been separate since the 13th century (see above).

[1] In 1739 Robert's grandson Lt. Gen. James Dormer, a member of the Kit-Cat Club, sold Chinnor to a William Huggins.

His son Wenman Aubrey Wykeham-Musgrave inherited both Chinnor and Thame Park, but in 1917 the estates were broken up and sold.

Clayton and Bell restored the medieval stained glass and added a new east window.

[3] Most are 14th or 15th century but there are also later brasses commemorating a churchwarden (died 1899) and his wife, and two soldiers killed in the First World War.

[6] St Andrew's parish is now part of the Benefice of Chinnor, Sydenham, Aston Rowant and Crowell.

[10] By the early part of the 13th century there was a windmill on the Chiltern escarpment at Wainhill, about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Chinnor village.

[1] In 1789 a post mill was built on the west side of the village off White's Field.

Attempts to enclose Chinnor's common lands were ruled illegal and reversed in 1761 and 1817.

In the latter part of the 18th century a petition signed by the Rector and 13 tenant farmers complained that Chinnor had such a "multitude" of alehouses that they were "a check to industry and good order".

The petition claimed that the Chequers was a house of ill fame and called for its licence not to be renewed.

[1] The 1851 Census recorded 268 lace-makers in Chinnor, including labourers' wives and 86 children.

[25] About 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) south of the village at Spriggs Alley in the Chilterns is the Sir Charles Napier Inn[26] gastropub.

[31] Chinnor Beer Festival is held annually on August bank holiday at Whites Field off Mill Lane.

[32] The 2011 Census incorporated the figures for the nearby hamlet of Crowell to the south into an output area accordingly used[clarification needed] to enlarge the civil parish definition of Chinnor due to Crowell's small population.