Medmenham Abbey

[ormesbyannie]

Does anyone know what it is now ? Is it a hotel?

[Kingsway]

The Hell Fire Club initially was based at Medmenham Abbey, which Sir Francis Dashwood bought and converted into an erotic garden. The members of the Hell-Fire club took part in mock religious ceremonies and used masks and costumes to allow them to indulge in varying degrees of debauchery. Medmenham gained some notoriety so the Hell Fire club moved to a more secluded site at West Wycombe caves. Members of the club included Sir Francis Dashwood, the Earl of Sandwich, Thomas Potter (the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury), John Wilkes, William Hogarth, the Earl of Bute, the Marquis of Granby, the Prince of Wales, and possibly Benjamin Franklin and Horace Walpole. It was alleged that the 'monks' took prostitutes down the Thames from London in barges to act as masked 'nuns'. The members of the Club also were accused of celebrating the Black Mass over the naked bodies of aristocratic ladies, one of whom was Lady Mary Montagu Wortley, the mother-in-law of the Earl of Bute. Hotel or not, no really nice person would even think about the place let alone go there.

[Octavius]

It would appear so:
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/sear ch/reference.asp?index=1&imageUID=74469&main_q uery=&theme=&period=&county=&district=&place_n ame=Medmenham