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Karen and her first
Victorian post box
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Much to Buddy’s delight we
caught a train to Buxton on Thursday morning.
On our way to the station at New Mills we realised that the moorland
plateau above it, that we see every time we leave the boat, is Kinder Scout
that we walked up last weekend.
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Kinder Scout above New
Mills
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Buxton is 1,000 feet above
sea level and shares the title of highest market town in England with Alston in
Cumbria. It made for an impressively
scenic 20-minute train journey through the western Derbyshire Dales to the end
of the line.
Within two minutes of
arriving at Buxton Karen suddenly crossed the road and I realised she was
heading for a post box. It turned out to
be Victorian and the first she has spotted before me 😊. It is one of the rather ornate hexagonal
variety known, at its launch, as the 'New standard letter box'.
This one was made in 1866 by Cochrane of Birmingham and designed by J.W.
Penfold.
The letter box was
opposite the rather stunning (to us) opera house:
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| Buxton opera house |
We took a circular walk
that went through a couple of parks, a few of the old parts of town and the main
hill overlooking the town. As it’s a spa
town it felt to us very much like Leamington and Bath, especially with so many
stone buildings.
The original part of town
is called Higher Buxton, but we started in Lower Buxton which grew up around
the spas and greatly expanded after the railway reached town. I don’t want to mislead you as the spas were
first discovered by the Romans, but it was really the Victorians that brought
it to prominence. I always wonder at the
phrase, ‘Discovered by the Romans’, as no doubt there were natives living in
the area before them as they would have settled there for the thermal waters
too.
The Crescent was built in
1784 to rival Bath’s Crescent; it is currently being refurbished as an 80-bedroom
5-star hotel complete with its own thermal natural mineral water spa.
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Not much to see at the
moment as it's behind hoardings but I suspect it will be stunning when restored
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Around the corner is the
Cavendish arcade which used to house one of the thermal spas, this one imaginatively called Buxton
Baths.
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Buxton Baths
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Ornate veranda on one side
of Buxton Baths
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Opposite Buxton Baths was
a coffee and coaching house built in 1626.
With the coming of tourists to the spas it soon converted to a
hotel. Sadly, it is now derelict but
fortunately has been bought for restoration by Robinsons, a local brewery.
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The saddish looking Grove
hotel but, again, with a decent ornate veranda
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We both thought Buxton was
lovely with lots of open spaces and places to walk. It certainly caters for today’s tourists
judging by the number of attractions on the signposts:
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Like most towns, the older
buildings are in the centre and private housing becomes more modern as you get
further out of town. As can be imagined
there are many grand Victorian and Edwardian mansions, but the odd older street
of cottages can still be found.
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A former pub with Toby jug
gargoyles
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Grin Low, the hill above
Buxton, was quarried for limestone for centuries, but once it became
fashionable to visit the town for the spas, a local businessman planted 100
acres of trees to hide the scarred hillside from the visitors. We were soon walking through these woods and
climbed steeply to the top of Grin Low.
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Dressed in woodland disguise
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On the way up, we could
see the Cat & Fiddle, the road that runs between Macclesfield and Buxton
and is often mentioned on radio traffic programs in the winter when the snow
closes it. It is named after the pub at
its summit.
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The Cat & Fiddle road with the
original packhorse road to its right which is still a stone track
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After coming out of the
woodland the quarrying landscape became obvious with many remains of kilns and
quarried pits.
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Out in the open again with
Solomon’s Temple in the distance
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A guy called Solomon
Mycock paid for a landmark tower to be built at the top of Grin Low; he was the
owner of the Cheshire Cheese hotel in Buxton.
When we visited the Cheshire Cheese later in the day we were reminded of
its namesake at Wheelock at the bottom of the flight of locks known as The Cheshire
Flight or Heartbreak Hill.
The tower was destroyed
over the years and the current one was built in 1894 from subscriptions by
local business people. It does have a
staircase to the top which we climbed but it really is best described as a
folly.
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Solomon’s Temple or
Grinlow Tower as it is also now known (the black scarred hill on the right
shows the impact of quarrying)
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Looking over Buxton from
the top of the tower
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In the centre of the picture above is
the Devonshire Dome, built in 1779 for one of the Dukes of Devonshire. It is still the largest unsupported dome in
Europe; amazing when you think about when it was built. It is larger than the dome of St Paul’s
cathedral in London.
The massive building to
the right of the dome is the Palace hotel, built in 1863 and still a hotel to
this day.
We walked back through
Higher Buxton with its narrow lanes and coaching houses which are now mainly
pubs or hotels. The visit wouldn’t have been
complete without seeing the public toilets behind the cross in front of the
town hall in the market square.
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The cross has been moved
to different spots around the square several times in its lifetime apparently
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Walking back down from
Higher Buxton with the Devonshire Dome and Old Hall hotel in front of us
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They say the Old Hall
Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in England; the current building having stood
since 1573. Apparently it was a favourite
of Mary Queen of Scots but I find the hotel’s website may be a bit over the top
when it claims to be the oldest hotel in England dating back many thousands of
years! I suspect they are referring to
the fact that the remains of a Roman a bath house were found beneath the
cellars.
As far as butterflies were
concerned, it was just a bit too cold for most of them and we just saw the odd
white flying in sheltered spots.
Finally, especially for my
sister who loves herons, here’s the heron that was fishing opposite us at
Bugsworth basin and wouldn’t appear whilst she stayed with us.
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The heron reappeared after
Judith and Nigel left
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