Update: The museum’s former home, Peak Buildings on Terrace Road, was sold at auction in January 2025. The museum opened in a temporary building next to Buxton Library in October 2026, while a permanent home is sought.
Around 200 people gathered outside Buxton Museum and Art Gallery on 8 June 2024, just over a year after the closure. The event was organised by the We Are Buxton Community Forum (WAB).
WAB spokesperson Jean Ball said: “We are thrilled at the scale of the passion demonstrated by the number of people who turned out this morning in support of Buxton Museum & Art Gallery.”
The enthusiastic crowd held ‘We love BMAG’ banners and included representatives from town organisations including Buxton Civic Association, Vision Buxton, Buxton Festival Fringe and Explore Buxton. Among those attending was Ros Westwood MBE, the retired Derbyshire Museums Manager, who worked at Buxton Museum for 25 years. She said: “I come here standing on the shoulders of ten previous curators who have worked tirelessly for the town to have – at the people’s request – this museum. It was very much the people who asked for it and it is the people’s collection.”
The event followed a statement from WAB, then made up of eight local groups, calling for a viable long-term home for the collection in Buxton and supporting an interim service.
The museum, operated by Derbyshire County Council, was closed abruptly on 1st June 2023 following the discovery of dry rot in the building’s structural timbers, with the council citing a health and safety risk.
In May 2024, the council announced that the museum would leave Peak Buildings permanently, saying the cost and time required to repair it made it no longer viable as a museum.
At the time of the gathering, the council had committed to a museum service in Buxton but had not secured a permanent new home.
The museum began in the Town Hall by 1893 and moved to Peak Buildings in 1928, according to a 2017 speech by then museums manager Ros Westwood. The council said its collections included well over 40,000 items in 2024. The Wonders of the Peak galleries were redeveloped in 2017.
Netta Christie, who ran Discover Buxton, said at the time, “As an individual who’s gained an awful lot of pleasure from the museum in the past and as a businesswoman who owes a debt of gratitude to the museum for how they helped my fledgling business when I set up, I think we are poorer without it. The customers that were coming to us on our tours, we were able to say to them, well, if you want to go and look in a little bit more detail now, why don’t you go to the museum? If you want to go and have a look at the Roman coins we have just been talking about, go and have a look at their collection.”
Cllr Anthony McKeown, then leader of High Peak Borough Council, remarked, “We have got the Crescent sorted, the Pavilion Gardens sorted, having those attractions that can bring people in is something we need more of, not less.”
Cllr Linda Grooby also commented at the public gathering, “I’ve probably worked as hard as anybody to try to find a solution to where we can put the museum. Cllr Barry Lewis is also committed to it. We really are trying to find a good alternative. The (current) building isn’t fit for purpose, and we need a better place for the museum.”
At the time, a petition supporting the museum’s future had gathered more than 5,100 signatures.
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