Why only a fool would visit Buxton

It’s strange how ideas of beauty change over time. Today we revere rail travel and we look in awe and sentimentality at abandoned stone bridges and the lost branch lines which used to wind around some of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes.

I remember, many years ago when I was walking in the Peak District, coming across the Headstone viaduct near Bakewell. Five towering arches support the 90m span as it over-leaps the deep limestone valley cut by a meander in the River Wye.

Closed by Beeching, the last train ran in 1968 and the tracks have long gone. But in my imagination, I yearned for a passing engine to bring it back to life leaving a plume of steam drifting across the void. It would have been the ultimate in rural nostalgia.

When it was built in 1863, however, it was perceived, by some, as an environmental crime. John Ruskin – easily the most influential cultural critic of his time – didn’t hold back in an essay aimed at the men who built the viaduct. “There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe... You enterprised a Railroad through the valley – you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the Gods with it.” 

Ruskin finished his lament with a vicious (and let’s face it, extremely snobbish) barb against the freedoms and pleasures of travel: “Now, every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process of exchange – you Fools everywhere.”

Now the viaduct is a beacon of healthy outdoor activity. It forms part of the nine-mile Monsal Trail – a bridle and cycling path which follows the old railway line from the Coombs Road viaduct near Bakewell to Blackwell Mill junction, about three miles short of Buxton. 

As one of those fools who wanted to go to Buxton, I was cheered by the fact that the first part of that railway is still operational. Actually I think it is a slight variation on it – I don’t want to offend rail purists. Either way, a regular service still chugs out of Manchester Piccadilly.

Once past Disley, you begin to get a sense of the beauties of the original line, and especially the last few miles which snake along the wooded valleys towards Buxton. Here the station welcomes you with a taste of the grandeur that is to come. The town once had two identical stations both designed by Joseph Paxton, but built by two different rail companies. Each was fronted with grand pediments framing a huge fan window. Only one now survives. It is shorn of its original roof, but the original ambition is clear. 

Paxton was trying to emulate the architectural glories of the previous century. Buxton was remodelled in the 1770s and 80s – largely financed by the 5th Duke of Devonshire – as a northern rival to Bath to cash in on the boom in health tourism. The sweeping stone Crescent is a smaller, but direct echo of the Royal Crescent in Bath. 

Most extraordinary of all was the Great Stables, another monumental stone building constructed on the outskirts of the town. Octagonal in shape, it could cater for 120 horses and associated grooms and servants of the wealthy aristocrats who came to take the waters.

Obviously, the stables could not survive the arrival of the railway, so the Victorians converted it into a hospital for the “sick poor”. Buxton’s ambition was just as great as in the previous century, however. In 1880 a dome, measuring nearly 45m in diameter was added to the building. That’s bigger than the Pantheon in Rome or the duomo in Florence.

The stations and the dome were one just one of the ways that Victorians put their architectural stamp on Buxton. As the railway brought more and more visitors, the town around the Crescent was transformed into the most modern of resorts. 

In 1867 the Palace Hotel was opened, followed in 1871 by the Pavilion Gardens which were landscaped around the clear waters of the River Wye. Ruskin probably wouldn’t have approved of the fact that the bandstand was built on the site of a 2,000 year-old Celtic temple, destroying what was left of the ancient monument. 

But surely he would have admired the glass and cast-iron Pavilion and Conservatory and the octagonal concert hall which frame the north side of the gardens and were designed to emulate the great Crystal Palace in London. A new pump room was built in 1894 and many of the final touches of the beautification of Buxton date from around this time – Art Nouveau flourishes, like the decorations of the original spa pool in the Crescent Hotel, which has just been restored.

I took all this in when I visited last July, strolling around the Pavilion Gardens and visiting the pavilions. I had chosen my moment. July is when Buxton society has its moment in the sun. The International Festival has been held every summer (bar covid) since 1979. Conceived as a way of rejuvenating the town in the 20th century. Its offering of talks (this year’s speakers include playwright Sir David Hare, Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller, and BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen) and concerts is stimulating enough, but not out of the ordinary for a summer festival. 

However, central to its particular charm is the opera house where the key performances and events are held. It has a strong record. The Telegraph opera critic, Nicholas Kenyon, gave last year’s festival production of Rossini's “Donna del Lago” four stars: “inventively staged and gloriously sung,” he thought. This summer, you will be able to choose between three new productions – Bellini's “La sonnambula”, Mozart’s “Il re pastore” and Handel’s “Orlando”. 

The opera house also represents the final architectural embellishment of Buxton. An Art Nouveau treasure, backing onto the Pavilion Gardens, with twin domed towers and a glass and iron porch spanning the entrance steps. Designed by the same architect as the London Coliseum, yet it is less than half the size, it somehow manages to combine a sense of both splendour and intimacy. A bit like Buxton itself.

The 2023 Buxton International Festival runs from July 6-23. Full details (buxtonfestival.co.uk). Nick Trend was a guest of the Buxton Crescent Hotel (ensanahotels.com/en/hotels/buxton-crescent) where double rooms cost from £145.

This article has been updated to correct inaccuracies spotted by our readers