Ghost
The Stolen Heart
A poet's heart in a hilltop urn, until a thief took it.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Roofless hexagonal flint mausoleum crowning West Wycombe Hill
- Legend from
- 1770s; theft 1829 or 1850s
- Tone
- Eerie
On the hilltop is Dashwood's mausoleum. A poet's heart was kept there in an urn, until someone stole it. His ghost, they say, still wanders.
On top of West Wycombe Hill stands the roofless, six-sided flint mausoleum that Sir Francis Dashwood built in 1764-5. The poet Paul Whitehead, steward of the Hellfire Club and Dashwood's close friend, left his heart to Sir Francis in his will, with money for a marble urn to hold it. After Whitehead's death in the 1770s the heart was set in the urn in the mausoleum with a procession and specially commissioned music. Locals showed it to tourists, who were even allowed to hold it, until it was stolen. Whitehead's ghost is said to roam the caves and the estate, perhaps because his heart is missing.