The Hell Fire Club

The Hell Fire ClubFor One Exotic Decade in the Eighteenth Century some uncommon rites were conducted at Medmenham (pronounced "Mednam") Abbey on the Thames River thirty-odd miles northwest of London. From 1753 to 1763 the rambling, redroofed Abbey, originally a Cistercian monastery, was used as a week-long retreat several times a year by an order called the Friars of St. Francis.At dusk a bell would toll and the dozen or so communicants would assemble in the cloisters wearing white hat...