Watlington and Pyrton Hills

Watlington Chalk Pit is a 1.6-hectare (4.0-acre) Local Nature Reserve east of Watlington in Oxfordshire. It is owned by South Oxfordshire District Council and managed by Watlington Parish Council and Watlington Environment Group. It is part of Watlington and Pyrton Hills Site of Special Scientific Interest.This site has floristically rich chalk grassland and scrub. There are many lichens, mosses and liverworts, and twenty species of butterfly have been recorded. Wintering birds include fieldfares, redwings, yellowhammer and linnets.There is access from Hill Road.

Watlington Park is an English country house with its surrounding grounds of approximately 500 acres (200 ha), located atop an escarpment in the Chiltern Hills, approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) southwest of Christmas Common and 1.4 miles (2.3 km) southeast of Watlington, Oxfordshire.

Christmas Common is a hamlet in Watlington civil parish, Oxfordshire about 7+1⁄2 miles (12 km) south of Thame in Oxfordshire, close to the boundary with Buckinghamshire. The hamlet is 812 feet (247 m) above sea level on an escarpment of the Chiltern Hills. Because of its elevation, Christmas Common has two radio masts that are prominent local landmarks.

Watlington railway station in Oxfordshire was the terminus of the Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway and opened in 1872. Watlington station was not in Watlington itself, but in the parish of Pyrton half a mile from Watlington. The line was always single track. The facilities at Watlington station included a stone-built passenger building, a goods shed, and locomotive and carriage sheds. The line was projected to be extended to Wallingford, where it would complete a cross-country line between Cholsey and Princes Risborough. Due to financial difficulties the Watlington - Wallingford section was never built. British Railways closed the Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway to passengers in 1957 and to goods in 1961. Remains of the buildings exist, heavily overgrown, on private land.

Shirburn Hill is a 63.7-hectare (157-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest just outside and to the northeast of Watlington, Oxfordshire.The hill has chalk grassland, chalk heath, scrub and broadleaved woodland. Most grasslands in the Chilterns are maintained by stock, and the site is unusual in being cropped only by rabbits. Less closely grazed areas have taller grass with species such as false oat-grass, tor-grass and red fescue. There are large areas of hawthorn and buckthorn scrub.

Shirburn Castle is a Grade I listed, moated castle located at the village of Shirburn, near Watlington, Oxfordshire. Originally constructed in the fourteenth century, it was renovated and remodelled in the Georgian era by Thomas Parker, the first Earl of Macclesfield who made it his family seat, and altered further in the early nineteenth century. The Earls of Macclesfield remained in residence until 2004, and the castle is still (2022) owned by the Macclesfield family company. It formerly contained an important, early eighteenth century library which, along with valuable paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts including furniture, remained in the ownership of the 9th Earl and were largely dispersed at auction following his departure from the property; notable among these items were George Stubbs's 1768 painting "Brood Mares and Foals", a record setter for the artist at auction in 2010, the Macclesfield Psalter, numerous rare and valuable books, and personal correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton. On account of its "fairy tale" external appearance and unmodernised interior, the castle has been used on occasion for film and television settings and is possibly best known to the outside world via that route, since it remains in private hands, no roads pass it, and it is generally not open to the public for visiting. In addition, any history of the castle is somewhat obscured by lack of permitted access to scholars of medieval architecture over the past one (to two) hundred years as well as by conflicting statements in available published accounts; these include that the present castle has Norman origins and/or is on the site of a Norman precursor (not supported by any evidence), that the castle is an early example of brick construction (based on a mis-interpretation), and that the castle was badly damaged during the English Civil War prior to its rebuilding in the eighteenth century (no evidence exists for this assertion). A further piece of apparently deliberate misinformation was a claim that "Shirburn Castle" was visited by a tutor of Dante at the end of the thirteenth century, before the present structure was known to exist; the 1802 document upon which this assertion was based was subsequently shown to be a forgery.

All Saints' Church is the redundant Church of England parish church of the parish of Shirburn, Oxfordshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building, and is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church is at the west end of the village, immediately south of Shirburn Castle, the seat of the Earls of Macclesfield since 1715. The north chapel of the church is the mausoleum of the Parker family, Earls of Macclesfield.

Watlington Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street in Watlington, Oxfordshire, England. The building, which is used as a community events venue, is a Grade II* listed building.

Shirburn is a village and civil parish about 6 miles (10 km) south of Thame in Oxfordshire. It contains the Grade I listed, 14th-century Shirburn Castle, along with its surrounding, Grade II listed park, and a parish church, the oldest part of which is from the Norman period. The parish has a high altitude by county standards. Its eastern part is in the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Shirburn, the largest civil parish in the district, is forested to the south. A motorway cuts across one edge.

Orange Bakery is an artisanal bakery and baked goods shop located in Watlington, Oxfordshire, UK. It was started in 2019 by Kitty Tait with the help of her father, Alex, when she was aged 15 and battling with mental health issues.What began as a private pastime and a form of self-care grew into a business, first in the form of a weekly pop-up shop, followed by the crowdfunded opening of a full-time bakery store in May 2019.The Taits have written a book, Breadsong: How Baking Changed Our Lives (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022), based on their experiences, which also includes baking recipes.

Watlington is a small market town and civil parish about 7 miles (11 km) south of Thame in Oxfordshire, near the county's eastern edge and less than 2 miles (3 km) from its border with Buckinghamshire. The parish includes the hamlets of Christmas Common, Greenfield and Howe Hill, all of which are in the Chiltern Hills. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,727.

Icknield Community College is a coeducational secondary school located in Watlington, Oxfordshire, England. It offers tuition for years 7-11 (ages 11–16), culminating in the GCSE exams, and has humanities specialist status. The school is situated next to Watlington Primary School. Icknield admits students from its catchment area covering, in addition to Watlington itself, the nearby Oxfordshire villages of Chinnor, Chalgrove, Benson and others, as well from Stokenchurch across the county border in Buckinghamshire.In its March 2015 Ofsted inspection, the school was rated "Good".In 2017, Icknield converted to academy status, and joined the Acer Trust, a multi-academy trust of Oxfordshire schools.