Welcome to the Hell-Fire Caves

Supposedly of very ancient origin these unique caves were extended in the 1740’s by the infamous Sir Francis Dashwood, founder of the notorious Hellfire Club. His aim was to provide an extraordinary addition to his landscape gardens, no doubt inspired by his Grand Tours of Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Many of his fellow dilettantes were building great Estates and landscaping gardens and temples above ground but no others dared venture underground in this way. The chalk was used to build the main road from West Wycombe to High Wycombe. This also provided employment to the Villagers of West Wycombe following a succession of harvest failures. The achievement is a true feat of engineering and quite remarkable considering they were all dug by hand. You can still see the individual pick axe marks on the walls.

On his return from his travels Sir Francis established the famous Hell-fire Club which subsequently held chapter meetings in the Caves and whose members included Lord Sandwich, John Wilkes and other senior aristocrats and statesmen. Sir Francis later became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Benjamin Franklin was a close friend and visited West Wycombe often.

On entering the Caves, long winding passages lead deep underground for over half a mile, through the great Banqueting Hall and past various chambers. In these you will find scenes with various members of the Hellfire Club.

The final destination is the Inner Temple which is reached by crossing the River Styx. You are now several hundred feet below the Church on top of the hill.

Main Entrance

The splendid flint entrance was designed to look like a Gothic church to be seen from West Wycombe Park which is across the valley. It must have been built after 1752, when the new road from West Wycombe to High Wycombe (the A40) was finished. A stone pedestal, which still stands, was erected at the junction of this road and the Aylesbury road (the A4010) to record the event. The inscription in Latin on one side reads: “erected by Sir Francis Dashwood in 1752” and on the other side: “Oxford 22 miles, Aylesbury 15 miles, City 30 miles”.

Steward’s Cave

At the end of the straight entrance tunnel, the small cave on the right is stacked with tools, similar to those used by the 18th century workers, namely picks with long and short heads, crowbars, hammers, shovels, candles and candle holders.

The picks were for hacking at the chalk, which is hard and tends to come away in flakes.

The long crowbars were hammered into natural cracks and used as levers to loosen and prize out blocks of chalk. Chalk blocks, or “clunch” were used for the foundations of houses in the village and, in this case, of the road.

The chalk was then loaded with shovels or by hand into wheelbarrows, which were then pushed to the entrance and tipped into carts. Some of the loose chippings were used to fill in the area behind the flint entrance façade, which was the site of a much earlier quarry.

Lighting was provided by oil lamps and wax candles stuck into the walls.

Paul Whitehead’s Chamber

Paul Whitehead was a minor poet and steward of the Hell-Fire Club. His job was to keep a list of the drink consumed by members by members of the Hell-Fire Club at Medmenham Abbey, which is on the Thames about 8 miles from West Wycombe.

Whitehead died in 1774 leaving his heart to Sir Francis “as a token of his warm attachment to the noble founder”. He also left £50 with the request that it be used to provide an urn in which his heart was to be deposited, to be placed in the Mausoleum.

The head of the statue is copied from a contempory bust of Whitehead which is still on display in West Wycombe Park. The elegant urn is the original one from the Mausoleum.

Whitehead’s ghost was said to haunt West Wycombe. It is certainly very creepy in the Caves.

The Numerals XXII

These Roman numerals are probably a measurement in poles of the distance from the entrance. There were other such numerals further along but they have been worn away.

However, it is also possible that they refer to a secret passage, which is said to run from the caves to the church. Such a passage is mentioned in the fragment of two contemporary poems.

However, no traces of a passage have been found, nor is it likely to exist, since the caves are about 300 feet beneath the church and the climb would be very steep, slippery and dangerous.

Franklin’s Cave

The maze may represent something mythical or even part of the human anatomy.

Benjamin Franklin was a great friend and admirer of Sir Francis. He frequently stayed at West Wycombe, where he became involved in all sorts of ingenious projects. Franklin clearly visited the caves, for he wrote in 1772 to a Mr. d’Acourt in Philadelphia:- “His Lordship’s (Sir Francis had become Lord le Despencer) imagery, puzzling and whimsical as it may seem, is as much evident below the earth as it is above it”.

The Children in the Caves

For generations the caves have been an attraction for local visitors, especially children. Sir George Dashwood and his sister Mary Berkeley are shown as children from paintings of about 1880 in West Wycombe Park.

Sir George was to become the Whig member of Parliament for Wycombe for 31 years and supported, in opposition to his Tory father, who had been an MP for 37 years, the Great Reform Act of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and Catholic Emancipation.

The Banqueting Hall

This cavern is 40 feet in diameter; it is about 1,000 feets from the entrance and about half way down the caves. It lies a short distance to the East of the Mausoleum. In the ceiling is a hook from which a lamp was hung in the 18th century.

The compass-like design of the Hall with its four niches is clearly symbolic. The statues are from Italy.

After its restoration in 1973, one of the first visitors, Mr Brooks of High Wycombe, found a lump of chalk embedded with coins dated from 1720 to 1754. This suggests that work was proceeding on the site to provide foundations for the houses which Sir Francis was building in the village before the 1748 excavation began.

The Miner’s Cave

Miners with their tools, picks, a crowbar, a hammer, a shovel and a wheelbarrow, are depicted. Scaffolding would have been made of wooden poles, tied with a rope or nailed, with a floor of planks. Local unemployed farm workers were paid a shilling a day, enough to sustain a family in those days. They were supervised by an architect/ foreman.

The work would have been hard and slow, and occasionally dangerous. Large boulders of chalk are liable to fall especially if there are natural cavities behind. The chalk substrata is like a huge sponge with pockets of air, which fill with water.

The River Styx

The River Styx is called after the legendary river, which divided this world from the underworld. The souls of the dead were said to be ferried across the river by legendary boatman, Charon.

The only authentic account of the caves comes from Mrs Lybbe Powys, the traveller and diarist, who in 1796 stated that the pool had to be crossed on stepping-stones, whereas previously there had been a boat. Later in 1863 the pool of water was described as the ‘River Styx’.

The Inner Temple

This cave is 300 feet down beneath the church.

No-one knows what took place in it. In the words of Mrs Lybbe Powys; “Here, according to tradition, the Hell-Fire Club occasionally held its meetings”. She also mentions the hook which is still there in the ceiling for suspending a lamp or chandelier.

The scene shows some of the members of the club, John Wilkes, Lord Sandwich and Charles Churchill against a statue of the famous Venus de Milo.

The ladies, who attended the meetings, usually wore masks in order to remain anonymous, and with a badge with the words “Love and Friendship”. They had to be of a “cheerful, lively disposition to improve the general hilarity”.