In short, the part of England people retire to (4)
I believe the answer is:
beds
'people retire to' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'in short the part of england' is the wordplay.
'in short' means to remove the last letter.
'the part' becomes 'bed' (bed is a kind of part).
'of england' becomes 'ds' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'bed' with its final letter removed is 'be'.
'be'+'ds'='BEDS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for beds that I've seen before include "Shortened county" , "Garden plots -- English country (abbr)" , "Small English county" , "Dormitory items" , "wards have them" .)