There has been settlement in the area since the Iron Age, the name Chinnor may derive from the Saxon for "Ceona's Slope". Chinnor existed for sure in the late Saxon age, records of the village date from the reign of Edward the Confessor when the village was listed as being owned by Lewin, a royal servant. He held the village until the Norman Conquest when the village was granted to the de Vernon family. Later on, Chinnor was owned by the Earl of Winchester and until the late Middle Ages by the de Ferrers family.
Chinnor remained a small village for centuries, only seeing a spark in growth in the 1960s. The population more than doubled in size between 1951 and 1971. A major employer in the area was the Chinnor Cement & Lime Limited Company, this was finally closed down in 1999.
Chinnor's parish church is St Andrew which dates from 1160 although much of the current church dates from the 13th and 14th centuries. Chinnor station is the head quarters of the Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway preserved line, the original station was closed in 1961, it re-opened in 1994.
