Saturday 4 April - Ian and I met up with two of his archaeology friends, Aisling and Emily and we drove in Emily's car, Colin to Wycombe (pronounced wick-hum not why-comb as you might embarrassingly mistake in front of English acquaintances. Also not to be confused with the town of Wickham, also pronounced wick-hum). We were venturing to Wycombe to visit the hell fire caves because Aisiling is proposing to do her dissertation on hell-fire clubs, societies formed in the 18th century by wealthy and powerful men during which they revelled in debaucherous behaviour which mocked religion and the polite society of the day. The caves that we visited were chalk caves, quarried to build a road to connect workers to the local town. They were part of the Dashwood estate and it was a later Dashwood, Sir Francis who formed the local hell-fire club. We explored the 1/4 mile caves and tunnels, adorned with explanatory plaques, historical recreations with mannequins and Greek sculpture. It was a n interesting trek. Once we emerged into the sunlight again we had a cup of tea at the cafe at the entrance to the caves before further exploring the sights.
No comments:
Post a Comment