The Hellfire Caves

 

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Random blog day boo yah. As you should know Fridays is random blog day were we talk anything and everything and pretty much run with it. Today's blog is on The Hellfire Caves.

Also known as the West Wycombe Caves, The Hellfire Caves are a network of man made chalk and flint caverns which extend a good 260M underground. They are north of a village named West Wycombe and are at the southern edge of the Chiltern Hills near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, in the south-east of England.

During the late 1740's, Francis Dashwood, the 11^th Baron Le Despencer (2^nd Baronet), created the full cave system when he commissioned the ambitious project of supplying chalk for a straight three mile road (5km) between West Wycombe and High Wycombe, which was on the then extremely busy London to Oxford road....which is now the A40. Due to a series of droughts and failed harvests the local farmers were hired to complete the excavations.

The Hellfire club of which Francis Dashwood was a co-founder (and a founder of the Society of Dilettanti), began holding meetings during the 1750's and 1760's having previously used Medmenham Abbey(eight miles from West Wycombe on the River Thames) as a meeting place. The club motto was Fas Ce Que Tu Voudras: Do What Thou Wilt. A philosophy of life both used by English Occultist Aleister Crowley (1975-1947) and connected to French writer Fransois Rabelais's (1494-1553) fictional abbey at Theleme. Whilst the club was still operation, The Hellfire Club wasn't known by that name as this was given much later. The names often used were tied to both Francis and West Wycombe, such as The Order of the Friars of St. Francis of West Wycombe, Order of Knights of West Wycombe and The Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wycombe.

According to Horace Walpole (English Politician 1717-1797), the club practised various Pagan rituals and sacrificed often to the Pagan deities of Bacchus and Venus. The Nymphs and Hogsheads sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the clubs complexion. The Clubs gatherings of powerful men were really pantomimes of the rituals often done by the Catholic Church and often included Drinking and Orgies. Its possible the club added to the 18^th century rumours which were spread of “High-born Devil-worshippers who mocked Church and religion and whom supped with Satan”

By the early 1760's the club was no longer active and the caves were no longer used. One of the local legends/ghost stories is that the caves are haunted by various spirits including a young maid called Sukie who was accidentally killed by the very people who played a very cruel practical joke on her. Another supposed ghost is that of Paul Whitehead, the former steward of the Hell Fire Club whose been rumoured to have been seen in the caves.

During WW2 the Hellfire caves were considered for the use of an air raid shelter for the surrounding area, however since Buckinghamshire wasn't considered a main bombing zone, the plans were axed. The Caves have been used and operated as a tourist attraction since reopening in 1951 earning ore that 2.1 million visitors in that time, with a good chunk of the income going to various charities, including the national trust.

Thanks to its connections to the paranormal world the Hellfire Caves have been shown on TV Thanks to Ghost Adventures and Most Haunted and some videos were made by Youtubers Sam and Colby and Elton Castee with the Overnight channel.

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THE WEBSITE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

https://www.hellfirecaves.co.uk/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Caves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZWJIgagME

(Overnight 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW3UO73oExs&t=5072s

(Overnight 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Suaz00_lSo8&t=28s

(Sam and Colby)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiJX3k6auWo

(Most Haunted S4 E5, YouTube channel name Pagey)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2243658/

(Ghost Adventures, IMDB, Hellfire Caves Episode)

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