Buxton
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No-one in Buxton buys Buxton Water in the shops â€" they bring their bottles to St Ann's Well and get it for free |
Buxton is a
spa town in
Derbyshire,
England and is described as 'the gateway to the
Peak District National Park' (true from the west). A
municipal borough until 1974, Buxton was then merged with other localities including Glossop, lying primarily to the north, to form the
local government district and borough of
High Peak within the
county of Derbyshire. Buxton is within the sphere of influence of
Greater Manchester due to its close proximity to that conurbation.
Built on the
River Wye, and overlooked by
Axe Edge Moor, Buxton has a long history as a spa town due to its geothermal spring which rises at a constant temperature of 28 ° C. The source of the spring is marked by St. Ann's Well opposite The Crescent near the town centre. Each summer the well is decorated according to the local tradition of
well dressing.
Initially developed by the
Romans around 78 AD, the settlement was known as Aquae Arnemetiae (or the spa of the goddess of the grove), although little evidence remains to be seen today. The town largely grew in importance in the late
18th century when it was developed by the
Dukes of Devonshire, with a second resurgence a century later as the
Victorians were drawn to the reputed healing properties of the waters.
The Dukes of Devonshire have been closely involved with Buxton since 1780 when the 5th Duke used the profits from his
copper mines to develop the town as a spa in the style of
Bath. Their ancestor
Bess of Hardwick had taken one of her four husbands, the
earl of Shrewsbury, to "take the waters" at Buxton shortly after he became the jailer of
Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1569, and they took Mary there in 1573 — she called Buxton
"La Fontagne de Bogsby", but stayed at the Old Hall Hotel.
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Buxton Wells |
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Buxton Crescent and St. Anne's Well |
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The Crescent (1780–1784) was modelled on Bath's
Royal Crescent by
John Carr along with the neighbouring Great Stables. In 1859
Henry Currey converted the stables into the Devonshire Royal Hospital (now the University of Derby, Devonshire Royal campus). In the process he added what was the world's largest unsupported
dome with a diameter of 47 m, beating
St Peter's Basilica (42 m) and the
Pantheon of Rome (43 m). However, this record is now routinely beaten by
space frame domes such as the
Georgia Dome (256 m). The dome is now part of the
University of Derby.
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Buxton Opera House was designed by
Frank Matcham in 1903. He was a famous theatrical
architect and also designed two
London theatres: the
London Palladium and the
London Coliseum.
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Buxton railway station was designed by
Joseph Paxton, and who also designed the layout of the Park Road circular estate. He is perhaps more famous for his design of
the Crystal Palace in London.
Another architect active in Buxton was
Robert Rippon Duke.
The annual
Buxton Festival and the three-week long
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festivals are held in the refurbished Opera House. The Buxton Festival, which runs for about two weeks in mid-July, is particularly noted for its
Handel productions and the presentations of rare operas, with top quality artists and orchestras.
Running alongside it is the
Buxton Festival Fringe. It is popular as a warm-up for the
Edinburgh Fringe, and it now claims to be the largest 'true' fringe festival in the UK.
Built on the boundary of the
Carboniferous limestone and the Derbyshire
shale and
gritstone, the original settlement was largely of limestone construction, of which only the parish church of St. Anne, built in 1625, remains. The present buildings, of locally quarried sandstone, mostly date from the late
eighteenth century.
Today the town's economy is still supported by the local spring waters, as the water which is bottled and marketed by the Buxton Mineral Water Company. The other major economic activities are
tourism, and the quarrying of
limestone. As noted above, there are opera and Gilbert and Sullivan Festivals in the summer, and the opera house generates a good deal of activity.
In September 2005, Derby University opened a brand-new campus site in Buxton, situated in the former hospital (in a still earlier incarnation it had been the Duke of Devonshire's stables), once the largest unsupported dome in the world. It now boasts a particularly nice restaurant.
In March 2006 the upmarket supermarket chain
Waitrose announced that it was buying a site in the town. In 2004
Barclays Bank published a survey of its customers showing that the
High Peak borough had the largest percentage year-on-year increase of people earning over £60,000 of anywhere in Britain.
At 307
metres above
sea level, Buxton is the highest
market town in
England — see, however, the article on
Alston, Cumbria, which also makes this claim (but lacks a
regular market). It is also officially the rainiest
market town in
England , this mostly being put down to its altitude and the surround landscape. The town is sometimes described by Derbyshire locals as being 'a top
coat colder'.
Buxton has a
railway station with frequent links to
Stockport, and the nearby city of
Manchester. The
bus station is a short walk south of the railway station, in Mill St., off the High Street. The town's buses offer affordable travel into the Peak District National Park.Other buses run to the nearby towns of Chapel en le Frith, New Mills and Glossop, as well as the 'Transpeak' coach service, offering an hourly link to Matlock, Derby and Nottingham. There is a Trent Bus directly from the Manchester Airport to Buxton. Some locals consider the public transportation system poor because of its consistent lack of reliability and limitations in making local travel (e.g. to the Hope Valley area). Journeys to more distant locations like Manchester are easier to make than to many local villages.
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Vera Brittain — author of
Testament of Youth and mother of
Shirley Williams*
Tim Brooke-Taylor — comedy actor
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Bruno Langley — actor in
Coronation Street*
Robert Stevenson — director of many
Disney films including
Mary Poppins*
Dave Lee Travis — former
BBC Radio 1 DJ, better known as DLT
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Buxton Opera House*
Visit Buxton.co.uk*
Buxton's local newspaper*
Buxton Festival Fringe
