In 2021, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery’s Ben Jones explored the town’s railway history using objects from the collection. The museum has since reopened in a temporary home next to Buxton Library; check current visiting details.
Buxton still benefits from a passenger train to Manchester with stops at the Derbyshire towns of Chapel-en-le-Frith and Whaley Bridge that offer gateways to the national park beyond. However, there was a time when you could catch trains to other local settlements such as Bakewell, Matlock, Cromford, Hartington, Tissington and Ashbourne. Like many other railways nationwide, the lines were eventually closed in favour of “progress” and we can now only imagine what it must have been like to chug through those characteristic hills on a steam-powered locomotive. There are fading vestiges of the lost railways in the landscape if you know where to look. The collections of Buxton Museum and Art Gallery contain further evidence of this golden age of travel.
Buxton once had two railway stations facing one another, operated by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and the Midland Railway. The Midland station opened on 1 June 1863 and the LNWR station followed on 15 June. This photograph from the museum collection shows soldiers marching between the two stations.
The two stations had matching fan-shaped windows. Historic England attributes the design to J. Smith, with advice from Joseph Paxton. The Midland station closed in 1967 and was subsequently demolished. The photograph shows members of the Railways Riflemen’s Club.
The former Midland Railway line crossed the Headstone Viaduct in Monsal Dale. Today the viaduct forms part of the Monsal Trail, a route for walkers, cyclists and horse riders between Blackwell Mill and Bakewell. Buxton Museum cares for this watercolour of the viaduct; the Iron Age fort of Fin Cop rises in the background.
These items were catalogued and photographed by museum volunteer Margaret Atack. An invitation records the opening celebrations for the Ashbourne and Buxton Railway on 1 August 1899. Regular public passenger services began on 4 August. There are also first- and third-class tickets in the collection. Read more about the opening.
Sightseers could journey from the spa resort of Buxton to gawp at the wondrous sight of Dovedale via rail, alighting at Thorpe Cloud Station. Buxton Museum cares for many wondrous objects that have been found in Dovedale, from fossils that are millions of years old to flint tools used by ancient people who once inhabited its caves. Among them is the Reynard’s Kitchen Cave hoard of Iron Age and Roman coins. A member of the public discovered the first coins in 2014, leading to a National Trust excavation. The Trust loaned the hoard to the museum that year.
Thor’s Cave in the Manifold Valley is another archaeological site and walking destination. A photograph in the collection shows the nearby station on the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway, a narrow-gauge line that operated from 1904 to 1934. It carried passengers as well as goods, including milk from Ecton, and gave visitors access to places such as Wetton Mill and Beeston Tor.
Not everyone approved of the industrialisation of Peak District travel. Victorian art critic John Ruskin turned his scrutiny to the railways and made his feelings known:
“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 … The valley is gone, and the Gods with it; and now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.” — John Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, letter 5.
This drawing from a sketchbook by 19th century artist Mary Twopenny shows Ruskin’s valley before the railway arrived, complete with travellers on foot, struggling up the hill.
For current displays and visiting information, see Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. Please contact the museum before reproducing images from its collection.
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