Pavilion Gardens, Buxton - 01298 25106 tourism@highpeak.gov.uk

Buxton is set amidst great natural glory on the River Wye, and is the highest market-town in England (regardless of what Alston in Cumbria have to say on the subject), and is over 1,000 feet above the sea...rather like a cup in the everlasting hills of the Peak.

The rude hamlet of long ago became a great spa through the fame of a warm spring known down the ages for its healing virtues, unfailing and unchanging in all seasons at a temperature of 82 degrees fahrenheit. It was the Aquae Arnemetiae of the Romans, who brought roads here from some of their military stations.

In the middle ages, in spite of its remoteness and its poor accommodation, pilgrims flocked to the well at the foot of the cliff, and the walls of the old well chapel of St Anne close by were hung with the stocks and crutches they were able to discard. Under Henry VIII the relics were removed and the well and the chapel locked up and sealed, but in the time of Elizabeth I, the water were again in good repute. Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought here for the benefit of her health (though one wonders why her captors wished to cure her of anything in the light of subsequent events). She stayed at the Old Hall, which was rebuilt in 1670, but has some remains of the older house, including the pillared entrance. It is now a hotel and stands at the end of the Crescent. At the time of going to print the Crescent is undergoing restoration.

The town is old and new, Higher and Lower Buxton. Higher Buxton is the older part beyond the slopes, where the village green has become a busy market square, but nevertheless has managed to keep its old stone cross. Here, Buxton's oldest church stands in a secluded corner of the busy road. It was built in 1625 after the well chapel had been abandoned. It has a stone roof and a bell gable, and is lighted by small square-headed windows. Fine stout old tie beams support the roof. The Jacobean font is oblong, carved with a shield, a cross, and a Greek letter. There is a 17th century oak reading-desk handsomely carved. In the little churchyard is the grave of John Kane the 18th century comedian restored by J T Toole a hundred years later.

Lower Buxton is the newer part, with fine houses and buildings, lovely gardens and walks. It has a fine Pump Room where the waters are drunk from the flowing source (in fact the water can be sampled free from an outside fountain, for the local authority must provide this service according to an ancient by-law) and the splendid Crescent built by the fifth Duke of Devonshire in 1780-86. Designed by John Carr of York and said to have cost £120,000, it is built in the classical style of architecture with three storeys and a fine arcade. The curve is 200 feet long with wings 58 feet and there are 380 windows. It looks across to the Pump Room and the terraced gardens of The Slopes. Behind the Crescent is the Devonshire Royal Hospital, also designed by Carr of York, converted from the old stables and riding schools, with a clock tower and a great dome said to be the biggest in the world, covering a round floor 50 yards across.

The classical church of St John, built in 1811 by Sir Jeffry Wyatville, has an imposing portico and a cupola for one bell. Bright and spacious within, it has a massive pulpit of marble and alabaster and a pleasing font. One of the windows has fine glass of rich colour with figures of St Michael and St George, and two windows have glass by C.E.Kempe.

The Duke's Drive, made in 1795, runs from the Bakewell to the Ashbourne road; it rides for a while above the Ashwood Dale and has a fine peep of the Lover's Leap. At its foot the delightful ferny Sherbrook Dell comes to the dale,with a profusion of wild flowers and plants and a stream flowing to the Wye.

From a tower crowning the wooded slopes of Grin Low, a mile south of the town, is a wonderful view 1400 feet above sea-level. The tower has replaced the old Solomon's Temple which once stood near a tumulus here. Under the slopes of Grin Plantation is Poole's Cavern, where a brigand stored his treasure long ago and nature has stored treasures longer than men have lived. Thomas Hobbes counted it one of his Seven Wonders of the Peak,and Charles Cotton sang the praises of this cave, one of the sources of the River Wye, which can be explored for 700 yards, with masses of rocks of strange shape and formation and a great wealth of stalagmites and stalactites. It is run by Buxton Civic Association and is open to the public.

To the north are Corbar Woods, with winding walks about the great hillside, a transformation from old quarries and shattered rocks to a glory of trees, ferns, and wild flowers. From the top of Corbar Hill is a magnificent view of Buxton close at hand, and away to Kinder Scout, Mam Tor and Axe Edge.

A Well-Dressing Festival is held each year in July at Buxton, in the market-place and at the fountain (from which the natural spring water gushes) outside the Pump Room. From this fine town it is so easy to enjoy the beauty of much of the Peak...Axe Edge, the Goyt Valley and glorious moorland drives. Axe Edge is a gritstone ridge of heath and moss and bog, looking out from 1810 feet high to a glorious panorama over three counties, and giving birth to five rivers...the Dane, the Goyt, the Dove, the Manifold, and the Wye. The wildly romantic Goyt Valley begins as a wooded ravine enclosing the new Errwood Reservoir. Above this we have a view of Errwood Hall on the hillside, noted for its rhodadendrons. A fine moorland walk of five miles from Buxton takes us to the Cat and Fiddle in Cheshire, the second highest Inn in England, 1690 feet above sea-level, with views over the great plain of Cheshire to the Mersey on the horizon, into Staffordshire and to the Welsh Hills.

Buxton was a home of man 100 centuries ago, when the Ice Age was retreating in the Peak...its museum is one of the most suitable places in which one can study the things our prehistoric ancestors left behind them in the caves and the gravel-beds. Here also one can compare their legacies to the Peak with things found all over England, for in the library is the collection of reference books kept by that intrepid discoverer of the past - Sir William Boyd Dawkins. One can see his notes on the margins of these books which are kept under a window given by Lady Boyd Dawkins.

Hereabouts, great discoveries have been made of historic and pre-historic time. Dr Dawkins found an amazing number of bones and teeth of extinct animals, the very oldest collection from caves that had been found at that time. He discovered them at the Victory Quarry, Dove Holes. They included bones of the mastodon, sabre-toothed tiger, rhinoceros, and the elephant...here they are in this museum, the marks of the hyena's teeth plainly visible on the bones of these great animals.

Here also have been found flints and pebbles worked by the Stone Age men, jaws and teeth of men and animals, stones and flints from the Arbor Low circle nine miles away. With all these one may compare the fine and comprehensive collection of implements from all over the world given to the museum by F A Holmes, a tireless friend of the Peak and one of the first advocates as a National Park.

With it all is a collection of things from the Roman period...coins, brooches, vases, altars, quern stones, and a milestone which told the Roman traveller the number of miles to Brough, near Castleton at one time.

No visit to Buxton is complete without visiting their famous Opera House. Built in 1903 and designed by Frank Matcham, one of Britain's finest theatre architects, the Opera House ran as a successful theatre receiving touring companies until 1927. In 1927 the theatre was turned into a cinema, silent films were shown at first, and in 1932 the theatre was wired for sound and 'talkies' took over. The demand for live theatre persisted though, and in 1937 and again in 1939 summer festivals were presented here. Among the stars of those days performing here were Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, Robert Donat, Anthony Quayle, Robert Morley, and Alec Guinness.

Towards the end of the 1970's the Opera House had fallen into sad disuse when it was lovingly restored in 1979 following dedicated work by many people, both locally and nationally. Since the completion of the restoration programme, Buxton Opera House has been at the centre of a remarkable success story. More than anything it has developed as a community theatre catering for wide-ranging tastes and becoming used by audiences and performers of all ages. Each summer it is the home to the Buxton Festival, which has developed into one of Britain's largest opera-based festivals.

The Opera House offers regular tours to those who are curious about what goes on back-stage, and there are certainly many fascinating facts that visitors will hear.

Although the Buxton Opera House is not the same size as The Paris Opera House, for example, it does nevertheless have its own ghost. Known as 'Keith', legend has it that in the 1930s Keith was pushed from the fly tower to his death twenty minutes into the second half. Staff and performers at the Opera House have often commented on the cold wind that seems to brush past them 20 minutes into the second half of a performance, whatever time of the day or night that may be!

The gritstone packhorse bridge at Three Shire Heads...where the counties of Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire meet can be seen near the A54 Congleton-Buxton road. At this charming spot by Panniers Pool, four packhorse ways meets to cross the River Dane. Packhorse trains...that is strings of up to forty or even fifty horses were the principal means used for the transport of goods from the Middle Ages until the seventeenth century.

The nearby village of Flash, which at 1518 feet above sea level is claimed to be the highest village in England, and depended on trade via the packhorse routes as the land hereabouts is poor. However the ease with which one could excape the law by crossing into an adjacent county at Three Shires Heads led to a certain notoriety for Flash, and its name was applied to the coining of 'flash' or counterfiet money by the inhabitants.