Buxton must surely rate as the architectural capital of the Peak District as here you can find majestic buildings dating back to Edwardian, Victorian, Georgian and even earlier eras.
Being a former ‘spa town’, Buxton still retains many of its hydro buildings where a hundred or so years ago you could be ‘cured’ of various ailments through the power of water treatments. Whilst many large properties have been divided up and converted into flats or offices, some surviving hydro establishments now operate as Buxton hotels offering more modern and up-to-date facilities including broadband internet, fax and photocopying services – unheard of a hundred years ago but ‘Jacuzzis’ add a touch of ‘nothing new there then’!
The Crescent at Buxton is a Georgian masterpiece to rival Bath which has been captured on canvas many times over using pen and ink, pencil or oils before the invention of cameras – every interpretation placing a different angle or dimension to its shape.
There have been visitors to Buxton for centuries – the Old Hall Hotel boasts to being the oldest hotel in England, having played mine host to Mary Queen of Scots. Daniel Defoe also stayed here in 1727 and afterwards wrote “this is indeed a very special place”.
Way back in 78AD the Romans came to Buxton to discover liquid gold in the form of thermal waters in which to bathe their weary feet after marching for miles along Roman Roads. Aquae Arnametiae was the Roman name they gave to the town. The thermal baths of Buxton are now dried up but St Anne’s Well is still flowing strong and it is possible to taste the local elixir by either sipping at the Well for free or buying a bottle of Buxton Water which is exported far and wide.
Buxton is surrounded by breathtakingly beautiful scenery from dramatic and desolate moors to deep dales where the river Wye trickles and gurgles beneath limestone crags and bastions of rock. Little has changed over the century apart from a few more roads, lots of traffic and a change in the number of trees here and there.
Our selection of drawings illustrates with nostalgia and poetic licence a Buxton in Victorian times when the town was in its heyday.