West Wycombe Caves
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West Wycombe Caves are most famous for being used as a meeting place for members of The Hellfire Club. The caves were extended by Sir Francis Dashwood (later Lord le Despencer) between 1748–1752 to provide work for unemployed farm workers following a succession of harvest failures, and lie close to Dashwood's stately home at West Wycombe (now owned by the National Trust).
The chalk mines that were extended for form the caves had existed near High Wycombe for a considerable time. The mines are said to have a prehistoric origin, and were presuambly created to extract the flint found in the chalk to make hand tools. Locally, flint is used as a building material. The entrance to the caves is built from flint, and St Lawrence's church, above the Inner Temple, is also built using flint. Due to the extensive alterations made by Dashwood, all evidence of the caves' eariler history seem to have been destroyed.
The underground "rooms" are named, from the Entrance Hall, through the Circle, Franklin's Cave (named after Benjamin Franklin, a friend of Dashwood who stayed with him at West Wycombe), the Banqueting Hall, the Triangle, to the Miner's Cave; finally, across a subterranean river named the Styx, lies the final cave, the Inner Temple.
The caves are opened as a tourist attraction. Visitors can tour the caves on their own, with a tape-recorded audio guide. Life-sized waxwork figures in period costume illustrate the life of the caves in the 18th century.
External links
- The Hellfire Caves (http://www.hellfirecaves.co.uk/)
- www.showcaves.com (http://www.showcaves.com/english/gb/misc/WestWycombe.html)