Chinnor Heritage

Nestling below the beech woods of the ancient Chiltern Hills lies the village of Chinnor

The history of Chinnor goes back to 120 million years ago, the age of the shark’s tooth fossil found in the quarry and exhibited at an exhibition in 1967. More recent history shows Chinnor’s entry in the Domesday Book and during its long history Chinnor has survived the Civil War, two World Wars and has benefited from the expansion of roads and railways. This has given rise to the potential for a rich and varied historical archive currently scattered throughout the village, lodged in photo albums, old newspapers and reports. These have been collected and digitalised for the benefit of historians, children or anyone else whose curiosity about their village is aroused.

Lots of ideas for recording Chinnor's history have been talked about over the years, however, it was Fiona Mantle's enthusiasm, let alone her research for her very own Thesis covering The Social History of Medical Self-Help in 20^th-Century England: A Microhistory of a Rural Community that brought to the surface, as well as highlighting a need to create an on-line archive bringing together much of the history held by others, together for all time.

The team approach their preferred supplier, a web design organisation, working with a content management system which would support an organically growing website.  A design team who would listen, construct the framework as the Chinnor Heritage team felt it should look and feel.  The website needed to not only look good on all devices, but easy to navigate.  Be informative and intuitive and handed over to the Chinnor Heritage team for editing / up-dates.

How was this going to be funded, this was not something to be undertaken lightly.  Fortunately, Chinnor Parish Council were in the throws of granting Grants for various projects relating to Chinnor.  A submission was put together and presented to the full Council.  A Grant of £5k was successfully achieved and would be "drip fed" to the Chinnor Heritage team over a period of 5 years. An initial paymenof of £2,500. was made to get the website up and running and also pay for the 1st year hosting of the website on a safe and secure server, and backed-up regularly.

However, currently due to an administrative error on behalf of Chinnor Parish Council the remaing grant of £1,000 has been suspended with no release date of the remaining funds in sight.

However all is not lost.  Chinnor Heritage were given a donation from the Chinnor Open Gardens Committee, of £480.00 for which we are truly grateful.

Moving forward new functionality is planned for the website including  a search engine and some drone footage. 

We have also recently published a completely fictious 2nd world war diary by Rebecca who was 12 when war started and 18 by the time the war ended.  

Take your time and if you like silent movies, then this is a must watch Chinnor memories

So far OVER 400 people have view our latest video on YouTube 

Thank you all so much

The Chinnor Heritage team are extremely grateful to residents / local organisations who have already contributed information, and look forward to others coming forward with their own material.  Our contact details are below.

We cannot end without thanking our contacts at Intuitive Digital, Cormac and Andy their patience with the team must have been tried many a time. We could not recommend them more highly.

Chinnor Heritage Team