At the summit at Grin hill, just a 20 minute brisk walk from Poole’s cavern is Solomon’s Temple.
The structure is a 20 foot high two a storey tower built on top of a Bronze Age barrow, a site of special significance, which sits right on top of a ridge. It was built originally in Victorian times by Solomon Mycock, a local farmer and landowner and it has no practical purpose whatsoever! It was built first in the 1890s.and was also known as Solomon Tower. It is actually a folly and was paid for by public subscription, the idea behind it to provide work for the locally unemployed with assistance of the seventh Duke of Devonshire. It was also restored in 1998, also by public subscription. From the top of the tower, there are spectacular views over the town and surrounding countryside but the tower doesn’t contain anything other than the staircase to the top.
During the construction of Solomon’s Temple, an archaeological dig revealed several Bronze Age skeletons which was said to have come from the ‘Beaker’ period. The Beaker people arrived near Buxton in the Peak District around 2000 BC from Northern Europe and their culture eventually merged into the Bronze Age. They were a people who prepared for the afterlife and lots of different burial mounds have been found around the Buxton area. Liff’s Low burial mound, near Biggin, included the usual beaker as well as tools, fragments of ochre, boar’s teeth and the skeleton of a man holding a quartz pebble. The skeleton and beaker excavated from here are displayed at Buxton Museum, together with similar cinerary urns containing cremated bones and other pottery. Some rare bronze earrings were discovered with a female skeleton at Staker Hill, just south of Buxton.
Once you have climbed the hill it is certainly worth pausing for breath and looking across the High Peak, beyond the impressive dome of the former Devonshire hospital, which is now the University of Derby and the sprawl of Buxton, where in fine weather, you can see for 50 miles to Mam Tor at Castleton, and Kinder Scout, which is the highest point in Derbyshire Peak District, standing at 2088 feet high. The folly remains one of Buxton’s most distinct landmarks and is great treat to walk in the open after viewing the darkness of Poole’s Cavern.