Another 7 Buildings in Buxton That No Longer Exist

Way back in 2016, Buxton Museum published 7 Buildings in Buxton That No Longer Exist, unaware that it would become one of their most popular posts of all time, getting thousands of views. Given the appetite for lost local history, the team at BMAG delve back into their collection to identify another seven structures that have vanished with the passage of time:

1. Dunmore Square, Buxton Market Place

Not one building but a group of buildings, Dunmore Square once occupied a northern corner of Buxton Market Place, next to the town hall but the entire address was demolished in 1873 for being unsanitary by The Local Buxton Board Act. It’s perhaps best not to imagine what kind of condition Dunmore Square was in for such drastic intervention.

This part of Buxton in the late 19th century was seemingly unlucky, the adjacent town hall burnt down in 1885 (it features in our original list of bygone buildings). In 1985, local artist Alan Clark painted this imaginary interior of a marble workshop in Dunmore Square, looking reasonably hygienic. There were many workshops like this in and around Buxton at the time and they often referred to themselves as museums. Alan was part of the team that created the original award-winning Wonders of the Peak gallery at BMAG and some of his artwork and fantastic models have become part of the collection.

Some people believe that if you dug down into Buxton Market Place and the nearby Slopes deep enough, you would find the foundations of more ancient structures. Roman coins were discovered in the baths at the bottom of the hill next to the Crescent so it is a plausible theory that the Romans guarded their real estate from the lofty position nearby.

2. Lawson’s Wine Vault, Spring Gardens

The same act that demolished Dunmore Square put an end to another feature on Spring Gardens. Lawson’s Wine Vault or Lawson’s Corner as its name would suggest was on the corner of Terrace Road and Spring Gardens. With a view to widening Buxton’s main commercial thoroughfare, the protruding building was ordered to be removed by the powers-that-be.

As you can imagine, Mr Lawson was not best pleased and his claim for compensation went on for some time. Busy traffic on Spring Gardens continued to be a civic headache and it was eventually pedestrianised in the 1990s.

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3. Oriental Tea Kiosk, Pavilion Gardens

The kiosk reveals itself in two photographs in the museum collection, looking very grand and exotic. It was designed by architect William Radford Bryden who was also responsible for several other notable constructions in Buxton, including the Old Clubhouse and Solomon’s Temple, as well as many large private houses.

The Oriental Tea Kiosk in Buxton’s Pavilion Gardens was built in 1899, tapping into the Victorian fascination with Eastern culture. It enjoyed a few good decades but the novelty obviously wore off and the kiosk became an amusement arcade in the 1960s and was demolished in 1977, which seems a bit of a shame.

4. Cab Shelter, Terrace Road

There are half a dozen images in the museum collection of the cab shelter at the bottom of Terrace Road, we’re not sure exactly where but the war memorial on The Slopes can be seen in the background so that gives us an idea. Some photographs have horses and carts parked outside and others show automobiles so we can conclude that the shelter stood for several decades and bore witness from four-legged transport to wheels.

It’s unclear whether the shelter was for the drivers or the passengers, or both. By today’s standards, it seems very civilised and quaint to have a little building in the middle of town where people can wait in comfort for a cab. It looks very well kept and decorated but sadly, it was not destined for a long existence and must have been knocked down sometime between the 1930s and 1960s.

5. Midland Railway Station

This is one of Buxton’s most famously absent structures and probably should have been included in our original lineup. There isn’t much photographic evidence in the museum collection to prove the town used to have two identical stations across the road from each other but owned by different railway companies.

If you look closely in the bottom left corner of this aerial photograph, you just about make out the rival twins, both designed by architect Joseph Paxton. Read the full story of Buxton’s lost railways here.

6. Racecourse Grandstand, Fairfield Common

This unrecognisable view of Fairfield in the 19th century was immortalised in oil paint by artist Harry Kingsley. Kingsley was an artist and teacher from Manchester and must have painted this picture sometime during his life 1914-1998, although it is based on a much older black and white print published from the early 1800s. At this time, Fairfield was not a borough of Buxton but a different town, although still on the estate of the Duke of Devonshire.

The duke loved horse racing and needed somewhere for his well-heeled friends to watch. If it wasn’t for the print and Kingsley’s colour rendition, we would have little idea this building even existed. There’s certainly no trace of it now. The bare hills in the background conjure a very stark view and the rather ornate grandstand is uninhabited. In fact, the only spectators seem to be some donkeys in the foreground.

7. Hoffmann Kiln, Harpur Hill

Most Buxtonians have heard of Hoffmann Quarry in Harpur Hill or perhaps its nickname The Blue Lagoon, due to the cobalt-coloured chemical lake that lingers in the old quarry. A few years ago, The Blue Lagoon got into national press due to its propensity to attract enormous groups of teenagers. We should hasten to repeat that it is not safe to party in old quarries or swim in water tainted by toxic substances!

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was a working limestone quarry and the lime was processed in the kiln nearby before being loaded on to the Cromford and High Peak railway. This is a photo of Harpur Hill Football Club in 1921 with the Derbyshire Cup, taken in a time before smiling for photographs was a thing. The kiln looms in the background like a ghostly titan. The kiln was shut down in 1944, the huge chimney demolished in 1951 and the rest of it removed in 1980. We can only imagine a time when the skyline of Buxton was thick with smoke that belched from its quarries and steam trains.