Francis Dashwood had these dug through the chalk between 1748 and 1752, nominally to supply material for a three-mile road to High Wycombe and really to give work to farm labourers ruined by drought and failed harvests. Then he used them. Through the 1750s and early 1760s the club that history calls the Hellfire Club, and which called itself the Brotherhood of St Francis of Wycombe, met in the Inner Temple chamber at the far end, 260 metres into the hill. Members included the painter William Hogarth, the radical John Wilkes and the Earl of Sandwich. Their motto was Fais ce que tu voudras, do what thou wilt. The route in runs through the Banqueting Hall and across an underground stream they named the River Styx. Reopened to visitors in 1951 and over 2.5 million people have walked it since. West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England
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