File:West Wycombe Park. Lake-3791037683.jpg

English: West Wycombe Park is a country house near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England built between 1740 and 1800. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th century libertine and dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 2nd Baronet. The house is a long rectangle with four façades that are columned and pedimented, three theatrically so. The house encapsulates the entire progression of British 18th century architecture from early idiosyncratic Palladian to the Neoclassical, although anomalies in the design of the house also make it architecturally unique. The mansion is set within an 18th century landscaped park, containing many small temples and follies which act as satellites to the greater temple, the house. The West Wycombe estate was acquired by Sir Francis Dashwood, 1st Baronet and his brother Samuel in 1698. Dashwood demolished the existing manor house and built a modern mansion on higher ground nearby. This mansion forms the core of the present house. Images of the house on early estate plans show a quite conventional square house in the contemporary late Carolean style. In 1724, Dashwood bequeathed this unremarkable house to his 16-year-old son, the 2nd Baronet, also Francis, later Lord le Despencer, who is perhaps best known for establishing the Hellfire Club close to the mansion, in the West Wycombe Caves. Two years later, he embarked on a series of Grand Tours: the ideas and manners he learned during this period influenced him throughout his life and were pivotal in the rebuilding of his father's simple house, transforming it into the classical edifice that exists today.