TUCKED into the side of the Chiltern Hills below Bledlow is the village of Chinnor. Here can be found a wonderful and rich history.

A watchmaker in the village in the 19th century took so long to mend watches that some of the owners never got them back. When he died his cottage was found to be full of clocks and watches, but no one knew who they belonged to.

An eccentric in the village at the beginning of the 19th century invented a copper cello and also discovered how to fly! He apparently made a pair of feather wings and was reputed to have flown as high as the top of Chinnor windmill and safely back to ground again.

King Charles was supposed to have stayed at The Black Boy Inn. One day Cromwell called there and King Charles escaped down one stair case while Cromwell and his men came up another. Only by further hiding in a tree on the Icknield Way did King Charles escape.

The Black Boy was apparently not always the name of this Inn. It changed its name at the turn of the century after “a police charge of a serious nature.” So far we have been unable to discover what this charge was.

Source: (WI History of Chinnor, 1929).