A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



6. BUXTON 



From the forts which constitute the chief feature in Romano-British 

 Derbyshire, we pass to other aspects of this region connected not with 

 war, but with the activities of peace. These aspects are, perhaps, limited 

 in extent and importance. But they are not without their points of 

 special interest, and they widen our knowledge of Roman Britain in 

 several directions. We begin with Buxton. Here was the one place in 

 our island, besides Bath, where medicinal springs were definitely used 

 during the Roman period and fitted with buildings suitable to bathers. 

 Everywhere else the healing waters either were still unknown or at the 

 best provided ill-understood remedies for the ailments of a few neigh- 

 bouring peasants. Even Roman Buxton was not a large town or an 

 important spa. It compares ill with Roman Bath. But it is the only 

 spot that can compare with it, and its significance, if small, is real. 



Buxton lies about 1,000 feet above sea level among the North 

 Derbyshire highlands. Its one important feature is its waters. These are, 

 or rather were, of two kinds. One is a cold chalybeate spring which till 

 lately rose from a bed of shale that here intervenes between the limestone and 

 the millstone grit formations. The other is, and probably always has been, 

 far more important. It is a tepid water which issues from several con- 

 tiguous fissures in the limestone in considerable abundance, and is potent 

 to cure gout and rheumatism and neuralgia. l All the springs, cold and 

 tepid, are close together at the bottom of a little valley. Apart from 

 these healing waters Buxton has little to attract inhabitants. Its cold 

 climate and severe scenery appeal to the vigorous tastes of to-day. But 

 that is a modern sentiment. The eighteenth century judged otherwise. 

 Leigh calls the situation ' inhospitable to mankind and indulgent to 

 wolves and beasts of prey.' Stukeley speaks of ' the poverty and horror 

 of these Alpine regions,' and Aikin of the ' naked and dreary hills.' A 

 French geologist who travelled widely through Great Britain in 1784 is 

 still more precise : 



Buxton est le pays le plus triste, le plus sombre, quc je connoisse. L'air qu'on y 

 respire est impregnd de deuil et de melancolie. 8 



So, too, in all probability, the ancients. In their attitude to wild 

 nature they closely resembled the eighteenth century. They loved a soft 

 air and a civilized prospect, and we may well believe that Buxton had few 

 charms for Roman or Romanized Briton. We must not expect to find 

 there the marks of a fashionable or a wealthy settlement. 



Camden was the first to call Buxton a Roman site. He knew, 

 indeed, of no Roman remains at the place. But he noticed that a Roman 

 road, the Bathamgate, led thither, and he therefore conjectured that the 



1 The temperature is 82 F. (28 Centigrade), and the outflow of one principal section of the springs 

 is estimated at 186,000 gallons a day. At Bath the temperature is about 120 F., and the outflow is 

 estimated roughly at nearly 500,000 gallons. 



8 B. Faujas de Saint Fond, Voyage en Angleterre (Paris, 1797), ii. 310. The book was written at the 

 time of the tour, but printed much later. 



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