John Edward Cooper’s Notes

[click on images to enlarge]

The first document mentions “your Menu for this evening”, but according to Janet we’d already seen it: “This morning we were given the first of a daily dinner request form — absolute shit: we didn’t want any of it. So I went to Reception and arranged to continue with the menu we’d been using, and also to eat at 5.30pm instead of 7pm — much too late.” (According to the Riviera document: “Breakfast is from 07:00 to 09:30 every day and dinner at 19:00.”)
 It’s evident from Janet’s account that we made ourselves known to Rosey the Tour Guide, who was already in the hotel; and because there was nothing else to be done till 3.30pm, we went out again, back near to where we’d been earlier.
 Just to the east of the Old Club House, between Water Street and The Square, there was a little grassed and wooded area, where we saw a baby robin. (In fact, there were perhaps two of them, for one disappeared at one point, and one appeared in a different place.) It just hopped about with its beak open, and wasn’t at all bothered about our being there; indeed, it was wandering around Janet’s feet at one point. I was following it about, trying to get a photo, but it kept moving off. And I just missed photographing it, with its wings wobbling, being fed by a parent.


Sunday 25 July 2021 13:39:36
Young robin flying away after being fed by its parent

From there, we proceeded north-eastwards, along The Square, by the Old Court House, to see whether the Buxton Brewery Tap House would be open. A bar farther along the building was open — Bar René — so we went in there. I had a glass of prosecco and Janet had a Diet Coke. The guy in charge spoke with a tone of voice and accent that was to my ears identical to that of the character René Artois (Gorden Kaye) in the 1982–ca.1992 sitcom TV series ’Allo ’Allo! “He’s about as French as my haemorrhoid!” I quipped.


Sunday 25 July 2021 14:18:52
Bar René, The Old Courthouse, George Street, Buxton

I had the Asus computer with me again, and had more success logging on to the Wi-Fi there than at the Old Club House. I remarked that Haddon Hall reminded me somewhat of Plas Mawr in Conwy, so we looked at our holiday in North Wales in 1980 (13:55–14:27), especially, in the Google Slides presentation, at the slides of Plas Mawr. We returned to the hotel. I transferred eight photos from the camera’s SD card to the WD Elements HDD (15:14). Then we went down to join the Riviera party for the walking tour of Buxton.

From the Itinerary, received today

Itinerary
The Peak District - Chatsworth and Buxton. 25/07 to 29/07 2021. Tour Guide Rosey Driver Craig
Breakfast is from 07:00 to 09:30 every day and dinner at 19:00. Please leave dinner menu choices in the tray at reception every day

DAY 1 Arrival and walking tour of Buxton
15:00 Check in at the Lee Wood hotel. Welcome to the Peak District!
15:25 Meet Rosey in the Devonshire Lounge.
15:30 Starting from the front of the hotel, there is a leisurely walking tour of Buxton in two groups with two local guides. This will take approximately 90 minutes, after which you may wish to return to the hotel or continue to explore Buxton at your leisure before dinner.

There were two guides, male and female, so our tour party of 23 was split into two groups, one designated “fast” and the other “slow”. The man led our “fast” group. (I forgot his name shortly after it was told to us.) He led us out of the hotel grounds by a way we’d not previously gone: north into Manchester Road. Till then, we’d entered the hotel grounds from the south, from Park Road. We turned right into Manchester Road, then some 240 yards further along we turned left into Marlborough Road. To the right, in the gap between the first two buildings, he showed us the Devonshire Dome.


Sunday 25 July 2021 15:48:56
Devonshire Dome, seen from Marlborough Road

That part of Marlborough Road was about 100 yards long. We turned right into Devonshire Road, where 120 yards or so further along we got a better view of the Devonshire Dome. (He could have taken us past it along Manchester Road, but more features, e.g. the clock tower atop the main entrance, were visible when going this way.)


Sunday 25 July 2021 15:54:04
Devonshire Dome, seen from Devonshire Road

The original octagonal building with a central courtyard was built for William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, in the 1780s as stables for guests of the Crescent Hotel. In the 19th century, it was converted for use as a charity hospital; and the design included what was then the world’s largest unsupported dome (145 feet: the Pantheon in Rome is 141 feet). In the 2000s the building was acquired by the University of Derby. A condition was attached that it be open to visitors (so we determined that we would go and have a look inside when opportunity presented itself).
 At the end of Devonshire Road, we turned left into Station Road, where he showed us the surviving end of the original “London & North Western Railway Co.” station. There were two railway companies serving the town, the other being the Midland Railway; and there used to be two stations side by side, with almost identical end walls with large fan windows.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:03:28
The surviving one of two identical station frontages

From where we stood, the guide pointed out, 300 yards away in the opposite direction, St. John’s Church (more fully, St. John the Baptist Church), built in the early 1800s under the patronage of the same William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, who’d had the stables built.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:05:34
St. John’s Church

From there, he led us across Station Road and south-eastwards into Terrace Road (the A515). On the left he pointed out “Brooke-Taylor’s Solicitor”, for the late actor and comedian, of comedy-trio The Goodies fame, Tim Brook-Taylor, came from Buxton. Then he led us, unexpectedly to me, into a shopping arcade on the right, called — surprise, surprise! (not!) — “Cavendish Arcade”. But the interior revealed the Victorian tiling of what had been the Buxton Thermal Baths. The original structure of the building had been preserved, while converting it in the 1980s into specialist shops. The barrel-vaulted stained-glass canopy was added at this time.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:11:12
Cavendish Arcade (former Thermal Baths)

An original plunge pool in the centre of the building had been preserved.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:12:40
Cavendish Arcade (former Thermal Baths): plunge pool


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:13:16
Cavendish Arcade (former Thermal Baths): plunge pool

Then he led us further southwards, up onto the Slopes, and around to behind the Pump Room and diametrically opposite the Crescent. It was here that he commented that some of the names in Buxton were unimaginative (e.g. “The Slopes”, “The Crescent”, “The Square”, “Higher Buxton” beyond the Slopes, “Lower Buxton” before the Slopes) but were adequately descriptive. The Slopes, in fact, had been a steep bare hillside, St. Ann’s Cliff, but had been filled in and landscaped for William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, as a place where guests of the Crescent hotel could promenade.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:15:40
Buxton Crescent and Pump Room


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:15:40 (detail)
Armorial Achievement of the Dukes of Devonshire


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:18:16
Walking-tour guide and some of the party

We looked at St. Ann’s Well, just next to the Pump Room. I, along with some of the others, sampled the water. When he asked, “What’s it like?”, I replied, “It’s warm.” The water, from an aquifer deep underground where the rock is hotter due to the geothermal gradient, is rainwater that has filtered down for thousands of years through the overlying limestone, and emerges at a steady 27℃. St Anne, according to tradition, was the mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus; and in fact, in the niche above the bronze lion’s-head water-spout, there are bronze figures of St. Anne and child. Above the niche is the inscription, surprisingly badly eroded for a structure that replaced an earlier one in the 1940s:

A TRIBUTE
TO THE MEMORY OF
EMELIE DOROTHY BOUNDS
COUNCILLOR OF THIS BOROUGH
by her husband and daughter.

On the marble trough, into which the water pours, is the inscription:

A WELL OF
LIVING WATERS

Sunday 25 July 2021 16:31:06
St. Ann’s Well

From there we went some 80 or 90 yards southwards, to the corner of “The Crescent” and “The Square”, with the Slopes to the east and the Pavilion Gardens to the west, where we turned around and looked at the building on that corner, the Old Hall Hotel. He told the sad tale of Mary, Queen of Scots, who stayed there when it was a fortified tower in the 1570s and 1580s, when she was in the custody of the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I. The tower was rebuilt in 1670, and in the 18th century became a fashionable hotel for aristocrats taking the spa waters.


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:34:24
Old Hall Hotel


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:34:40
Old Hall Hotel: blue plaque


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:38:52
Old Hall Hotel

It was perhaps when showing us the octagonal dome of the nearby Pavilion concert hall, that he mentioned once more the Devonshire Dome, and compared its size again with the “Parthenon” in Rome.
 “Pantheon,” I corrected him, sotto voce.
 “Pantheon,” he repeated.
 Finally, he showed us the Opera House, designed by architect Frank Matcham, who also designed the London Palladium,[i] and built in 1903. In 1927 it was turned into a cinema. In 1976, in a state of disrepair, it was closed; but it was restored and reopened in 1979, when it became home to the annual Buxton Festival. There was a big sign “BIF” in the fan window above the entrance canopy: “Buxton International Festival”, which was due to run from 3 August to 31 October.
 The tour ended ca.4.40pm, outside the Opera House; but I wasn’t happy with the blurredness of photos I’d taken of the Octagon and the Opera House, so I deleted them and took them again.

[i] …and, I have subsequently discovered, according to Wikipedia, the Tower Ballroom and Grand Theatre in Blackpool.

Sunday 25 July 2021 16:50:24
Buxton Pavilion and Octagon Concert Hall


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:50:44
Octagon Concert Hall


Sunday 25 July 2021 16:52:28
Buxton Opera House

Janet and I went back to the hotel. I transferred 16 photos from the camera’s SD card to the WD Elements HDD (17:16). I opened them in Windows Photo Viewer, and rotated one of them that needed it (17:18). Then we went down for dinner at 5.30pm. We were the only ones in the “greenhouse”. I again had a glass of prosecco as aperativo, and ordered another bottle of Rioja because I’d enjoyed the last one. We both had “prosciutto and poached pear salad” (or, as I remarked yesterday, “crispy streaky bacon”!). We both chose rib-eye steak with chips. Janet got them to lose the mushroom, grilled tomato and peppercorn sauce that were on the menu; I got them to lose the mushroom and sauce, but kept the tomato. My decision to have steak was made after I’d ascertained that they had suitable English mustard: they did have that disgusting Heinz vinegary stuff (mendaciously labelled “Hot English Mustard”); but they also had a large container of unbranded mustard, which I sampled and found acceptable. An acceptable turn, also, was that when I asked for vinegar this time a bottle of Sarson’s was brought, not a couple of those impossibly fiddly little sachets. We both had cheese and biscuits to follow. I found that I was struggling to eat them, though; at the end, I wasn’t enjoying them — but I hate to leave food. (I think I was brought up that way as a child.) We left the “greenhouse” by a back door, then went around it by a narrow path into the front garden, in which we strolled. We were back in the room, ca.7.15pm.… Janet recalled, “We were in bed at 9.20pm.”

[Monday 26 July 2021]