High Wycombe; Saturday, 01 July, 2023

I had intended on having a bit of a lie-in, but the rather efficient air-conditioning had managed to make the room so cold overnight that I woke up about 7:15 as I was quite cold. Rather than trying to get back to sleep I got up, switched the air-con off and had a long hot shower, after which the natural pull of heat from the rest of the building meant my room was quite warm again.

After a decent breakfast I headed out of the hotel and over to the bus stop to pick up the bus down into the bus station in town, where I changed onto another bus out to the neighbouring village of West Wycombe.

The village is made up of a number of historic buildings, mostly forming part of the West Wycombe Park Estate – once the family estate of the Dashwood family, but today in the hands of the National Trust. Many of the attractions of the village are the direct result of the actions of one member of the family -Sir Francis Dashwood and his 18th Century work on the church, Mausoleum, and deep underneath both the cave system he had dug and turned into the meeting place of the notorious Hell-Fire club.

I had a timed ticket for nearly an hour later to visit the caves so I first headed up the hill to have a look around the Church of St Lawrence and the family Mausoleum located on the very top of the hill before heading back down to the caves to have a look round them.

After taking in the caves I headed back to the bus stop and caught the bus back into High Wycombe, made a very quick change and a couple of minutes later was heading back out of town and up to the next village of Hughenden and it’s Manor house.

The Manor house passed through many hands during it’s life, but by the middle of the 19th century it was in the hands of its most famous owner, the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Most of the house has been preserved as it was when Benjamin and his wife Mary Ann were living there – though in 2004 it was discovered that during the war the house had been used as a top-secret map production facility, producing many of the maps used by the RAF bombers to plot their raids on Nazi targets. Today part of the house has been turned into an exhibit on this previously unknown history.

After looking round the house I had a quick wander round the gardens and then headed down the hill towards the Disraeli monument located about a mile from the house. I had considered going all the way to the bottom of the monument, but it would have been quite a long uphill hike to reach it across a field filled with cows, so I decided not to bother and instead walked on to the bus stop to pick up the bus back into High Wycombe.

Back in High Wycombe I had a quick stop for a very late lunch in a coffee shop in the town centre before having a quick look round the historic centre taking in the Little Market House, Guildhall and the outside of the parish church- the church itself already being locked up for the evening.

Having taken in the town I headed back over to the bus station and picked up the bus back up to my hotel, stopping off at the Waitrose to grab a picnic dinner.