by letters sent to each other. Meetings and club activities Sir Francis's club was never originally known as a Hellfire Club; it was given this name much later. His club in fact used a number of other names, such as the Brotherhood of St. Francis of Wy, Order of Knights of West Wycombe, The Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, and later, after moving their meetings to Medmenham Abbey, they became the Monks or Friars of Medmenham. The first meeting at Sir Francis's family home in West Wycombe was held on Walpurgis Night, 1752; a much larger meeting, it was something of a failure and no large-scale meetings were held there again. In 1751, Dashwood, leased Medmenham Abbey on the Thames from a friend, Francis Duffield. On moving into Medmenham Abbey, Dashwood had numerous expensive works done on the building. It was rebuilt by the architect Nicholas Revett in the style of the 18th-century Gothic revival. At this time, the motto Fais ce que tu voudras was placed above a doorway in stained glass. It is thought that William Hogarth may have executed murals for this building; none, however, survive. Eventually, the meetings were moved out of the abbey into a series of tunnels and caves in West Wycombe Hill. They were decorated again with mythological themes, phallic symbols and other items of a sexual nature. Records indicate that the members performed "obscene parodies of religious rites" according to one source. According to Horace Walpole, the members' "practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighbourhood of the complexion of those hermits." Dashwood's garden at West Wycombe contained numerous statues and shrines to different gods; Daphne and Flora, Priapus and the previously mentioned Venus and Dionysus. A Parish history from 1925 stated that members included "Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Duke of Queensberry, the Earl of Bute, Lord Melcombe, Sir William Stanhope, K.B, Sir John Dashwood-King, bart., Sir Francis Delaval, K.B., Sir John Vanluttan, kt., Henry Vansittart, afterwards Governor of Bengal, (fn. 13) and Paul Whitchead the poet". Meetings occurred twice a month, with an AGM lasting a week or more in June or September. The members addressed each other as "Brothers" and the leader, which changed regularly, as