West Wycombe Caves
Encyclopedia
West Wycombe Caves are a network of man-made chalk and flint caverns which extend one quarter of a mile underground, situated above the village of West Wycombe
West Wycombe
West Wycombe is a small village situated along the A40 road, due three miles west of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England.The historic village is largely a National Trust property and receives a large annual influx of tourists - being the site of West Wycombe Park, West Wycombe Caves and the...

, at the southern edge of the Chiltern Hills
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.-Location:...

 near High Wycombe
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...

 in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, Southeast England.

They were excavated between 1748 and 1752 for the infamous Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer
Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer
Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer was an English rake and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer and founder of the Hellfire Club.-Early life:...

 (2nd Baronet), founder of the Dilettanti Society and co-founder of the notorious Hell Fire Club, whose meetings were held within the caves.

They have been operating as a tourist attraction since 1951 and have attracted over 2 million visitors since their re-opening.

Location

The caves run deep into the hillside above West Wycombe village and directly beneath Saint Lawrence's Church and Mausoleum (which were also constructed by Sir Francis Dashwood around the same time the caves were excavated). West Wycombe Park
West Wycombe Park
West Wycombe Park is a country house near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, built between 1740 and 1800. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th century libertine and dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 2nd Baronet. The house is a long rectangle with four façades that...

, ancestral seat of the Dashwood family and also a National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

 property, lies directly across the valley. The caves' striking entrance, designed as the façade of a mock gothic church and built from flint and chalk mortar, which would have been erected at around 1752, can be viewed directly from West Wycombe House.

Design and Layout

The unusual and intriguing design of the caves were much inspired by Sir Francis Dashwood's visits to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 and other areas of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 during his Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

. The caves extend a quarter of a mile underground, with each individual cave or "chamber" connected by a series of long, narrow tunnels and passageways.

The underground chambers are named, from the Entrance Hall, to the Steward's Chamber and Whitehead's Cave, through Lord Sandwich's Circle (named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather, Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich, as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten...

), Franklin's Cave (named after Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

, a friend of Dashwood who visited West Wycombe), the Banqueting Hall (allegedly the largest man-made chalk cavern in the world), the Triangle, to the Miner's Cave; and finally, across a subterranean river named the Styx, lies the final cave, the Inner Temple (where the meetings of the Hell Fire Club were held), which is said to lie directly 300 feet beneath the church on top of West Wycombe hill. According to Greek mythology, the River Styx separated the mortal world from the immortal world, and the subterranean position of the Inner Temple directly beneath Saint Lawrence's Church was supposed to signify Heaven and Hell.

An alternative viewpoint was advanced by Daniel P. Mannix in his book about The Hell Fire Club. This theory suggests that the caves had been deliberately created by Dashwood according to a sexual design. The design begins at the 'womb' of the Banqueting Hall, leading to rebirth through the female triangle, followed by baptism in the River Styx and the pleasures thereafter of the Inner Temple. This theory is not mentioned in National Trust literature and is allegedly refuted by the Dashwood family. The flint mining theory is also questionable because the Chiltern Hills
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as "the Chilterns". A large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965.-Location:...

 flint bed overlays the chalk escarpment and does not have to be mined except by means of small open flint dells, of which there are many in the area.

Alteration and extension of the Caves

A chalk mine of supposedly ancient origin is believed to have existed above West Wycombe for centuries.

During the late 1740s, and in an attempt to combat local poverty, Sir Francis Dashwood commissioned an ambitious project to supply chalk for a straight three-mile road between West Wycombe and High Wycombe (then part of the busy London - Oxford trade route, and now the A40 road). Local farm workers, impoverished due to a succession of droughts and failed harvests, were employed at the rate of a shilling per day (enough to sustain a family in the Georgian era) to tunnel beneath ground and mine chalk and flint. The chalk was used to construct the West Wycombe - High Wycombe road as well as being used for building material for the houses in the village and for the church and Mausoleum. Considering they were all dug by hand, the caves are often regarded as an incredible feat of engineering.

The Hell-Fire Club

The caves were used solely as a meeting place for Sir Francis Dashwood's notorious Hellfire Club
Hellfire Club
The Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive clubs for high society rakes established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century, and was more formally or cautiously known as the "Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe"...

, whose members included various politically and socially important 18th century figures such as William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...

, John Wilkes
John Wilkes
John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...

, Thomas Potter and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, PC, FRS was a British statesman who succeeded his grandfather, Edward Montagu, 3rd Earl of Sandwich, as the Earl of Sandwich in 1729, at the age of ten...

. Though not believed to be a member, Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

 was a close friend to Dashwood who visited the caves on more than one occasion. The Hell Fire Club had previously used Medmenham Abbey, eight miles away from West Wycombe and situated on the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

, as a meeting place, but the caves at West Wycombe were later used for meetings in the 1750s and early 1760s.

Sir Francis' club was never actually known as a Hell Fire Club - this name was given much later. His club in fact used a number of other names, such as The Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe, Order of Knights of West Wycombe, and The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of West Wycombe.

According to Horace Walpole, the members' "practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

 and Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

 were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the complexion of those hermits
." Dashwood's garden at West Wycombe contained numerous statues and shrines to different gods; Daphne
Daphne
Daphne was a female minor nature deity. Pursued by Apollo, she fled and was chased. Daphne begged the gods for help, who then transformed her into Laurel.-Overview:...

 and Flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

, Priapus
Priapus
In Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...

 and the previously mentioned Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...

 and Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

.

Meetings occurred twice a month, with an AGM
Annual general meeting
An annual general meeting is a meeting that official bodies, and associations involving the public , are often required by law to hold...

 lasting a week or more in June or September. The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and the leader, which changed regularly, as "Abbot". During meetings members supposedly wore ritual clothing: white trousers, jacket and cap, while the "Abbot" wore a red ensemble of the same style. Many rumours of black magic, satanic rituals and orgies were in circulation when the club was around. Other clubs, especially in Ireland and Scotland, were rumoured to take part in far more dubious activities. Rumours saw female "guests" (a euphemism for prostitutes) referred to as "Nuns". Dashwood's Club meetings often included mock rituals, items of a pornographic nature, much drinking, wenching and banqueting.

Disbanding of the Hell-Fire Club

The early years of the 1760s saw the downfall of Dashwood's exclusive club.

In 1762 the Earl of Bute appointed Dashwood his Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite Dashwood being widely thought to be incapable of understanding "a bar bill of five figures". Dashwood resigned the post the next year, having raised a tax on cider which caused near-riots. Dashwood now sat in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

 after taking up the title of Baron Le Despencer when the previous holder died. Then there was the attempted arrest of John Wilkes
John Wilkes
John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...

 for seditious libel against the King in the notorious issue No. 45 of his The North Briton in early 1763. During a search authorised by a General Warrant (possibly set up by Sandwich, who wanted to get rid of Wilkes), a version of The Essay on Woman was discovered set up on the press of a printer whom Wilkes had almost certainly used. The work was almost certainly principally written by Thomas Potter, and from internal evidence can be dated to around 1755. It was scurrilous, blasphemous, libellous, and pornographic, unquestionably illegal under the laws of the time, and the Government subsequently used it to drive Wilkes into exile. Between 1760 and 65 Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea by Charles Johnstone was published. It contained stories easily identified with the doings of the Hellfire Club, one in which Lord Sandwich was ridiculed as having mistaken a monkey for the Devil. This book sparked the association between the Medmenham Monks and the Hellfire Club. By this time, many of the Friars were either dead or too far away for the Club to continue as it did before.

The Hellfire Club was finished by 1766.

Paul Whitehead had been the Secretary and Steward to the Hell Fire Club. When he died in 1774, as his will specified, his heart was placed in an urn at West Wycombe. It was sometimes taken out on display visitors, but was stolen in 1829.

Disuse and re-use as a tourist attraction

Following the demise of the Hell Fire Club in the 1760s and Sir Francis Dashwood's death in 1781, the caves no longer served a purpose locally and subsequently fell into disrepair, disused from a period between 1780 and the late 1940s.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War and the threat of German aerial bombardment, the caverns had been planned to have been used as a large air-raid shelter if bombing had occurred in the local area, but Buckinghamshire's rural geographical position meant that High Wycombe
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...

 and surrounding towns were not an enemy target, and therefore the caves were not in use during this time.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s the caves were renovated and turned into a local visitor attraction by the late Sir Francis Dashwood (11th Baronet), who used the profit earned to refurbish the dilapidated West Wycombe Park.

West Wycombe Caves have received over 2 million visitors since their re-opening in 1951 and continue to be a popular attraction today.

Hauntings

The caves have been the source of abundant paranormal interest and many ghost stories. The two most common ghost stories surrounding the West Wycombe Caves are the two listed below;

Paul Whitehead

Paul Whitehead, a steward and secretary of the Hell Fire Club and close friend to Sir Francis Dashwood, had his heart placed in an elegant marble urn (at the sum of £50) in the Mausoleum by Sir Francis Dashwood, as his will requested. It occasionally was put on display to visitors but was allegedly stolen in 1829 by an Australian soldier. Legend holds that the ghost of Whitehead haunts West Wycombe Caves and Hill, searching for his heart. Numerous visitors and staff have reported seeing a man in alarmingly old-fashioned clothing wandering the passageways. When faced he is said to vanish into thin air.

The White Lady

Another well-attested local legend is the tale of Sukie, the White Lady. Legend holds that Sukie (an abbreviation of the name Susan) was a teenage maid at the local George and Dragon Inn during the late 18th century or early 19th century. The sixteen year-old girl was apparently by far the most appealing of the serving staff, and many local men vied for the girl's affections. But Sukie had ambitions to marry into society and rejected the advances from all her local admirers. She began dating a local aristocrat, with whom she was very much taken with, and one day a message, purported from her lover, was sent to Sukie at the tavern instructing her to meet him in the caves one night wearing her best white dress as a wedding gown. She arrived, in candlelight and in her white dress as was asked, only to find it was a cruel hoax planted by three village boys. The girl threw stones and rocks in fury at her laughing tormentors, but when one of the boys threw one back, the joke went horribly awry. She was knocked unconscious, and shocked at what they had done, the boys carried her back to her bed in the inn, but she died during the night. The caves and inn are reputed to be haunted by her ghost, and many staff and visitors have reported sighting a girl in a wedding dress wandering the passageways.

West Wycombe Caves on TV

In 2004 and 2007 West Wycombe Caves were visited by British and American paranormal reality TV shows Most Haunted
Most Haunted
Most Haunted is a British paranormal documentary reality television series. The series was first shown on 25 May 2002 and ended on 21 July 2010. It was broadcast on Living and presented by Yvette Fielding. The programme was based on investigating purported paranormal activity...

 and Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunters
Ghost Hunters is an American paranormal reality television series that premiered on October 6, 2004, on Syfy . The program features paranormal investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson who investigate places that are reported to be haunted. The two originally worked as plumbers for Roto-Rooter as...

.

External links

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