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The Palace Hotel was opened in 1868 in 
The three-storey Palace Hotel is built of millstone grit stone and was designed in the style of a French
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.
, Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, England. It holds a prominent position in the town's central Conservation Area
Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...
overlooking the town. It is a Grade-II listed building.
It was built from 1864 to 1866 as the first-class Buxton Hotel on the hill next to Buxton's two new railway stations. It cost £50,000 to build and had 105 rooms, a grand ballroom and 5 acres of landscaped gardens with croquet lawns and a tennis court. After its construction, the venture was liquidated and the hotel was auctioned in November 1867 at the Waterloo Hotel in Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. It was bought for £20,000 by a consortium including several of the original investors, the Duke of Devonshire
Duke of Devonshire is a title in the Peerage of England held by members of the Cavendish family. This (now the senior) branch of the Cavendish family has been one of the wealthiest British aristocratic families since the 16th century and has be ...
and with the LNWR
The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom.
In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lond ...
railway company as a major shareholder. It opened as the Palace Hotel in May 1868. It was the largest hotel in Buxton until the luxury Empire Hotel with 300 rooms was opened in 1903 (although the Empire never reopened after World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and was demolished in 1964).
The three-storey Palace Hotel is built of millstone grit stone and was designed in the style of a French château
A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions.
Nowaday ...
(with a Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
with iron ridge railings and a central tower) by Henry Currey. Currey was the 7th Duke of Devonshire's architect and he also designed Buxton's St Ann's Well of 1852, Thermal Baths, Natural Baths, Pump Room, Market Hall, Holy Trinity Church, Congregational Church, Devonshire Park Chapel, Christchurch at Burbage, Wye House Asylum and Corbar Hall. Fellow architect Robert Rippon Duke
Robert Rippon Duke (31 May 1817 16 August 1909) was an English architect and surveyor who designed various prominent Victorian buildings in Buxton, Derbyshire.
Life
Duke was born in Hull, the son of a whaler, in 1817.
He moved to Buxton and in ...
was the Clerk of Works for the hotel's construction and he designed the grand marble-decorated extensions to the building in 1887, including a large new dining room at the rear and a new west wing.
The hotel was an annexe to the Granville Military Hospital during World War I and used to billet British soldiers and later as a discharge centre for Canadian soldiers. After World War II (when the hotel was used as offices for the British civil service) the Palace Hotel was reopened by the Hewlett family, who also ran the Spa Plaza Hotel (formerly the Buxton Hydropathic). The red neon PALACE HOTEL sign on the tower is a distinctive sight in the town.
Football teams including Manchester United, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and Southampton stayed at the Palace Hotel in the 1950s as a health resort. George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
, Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thie ...
, Mary Pickford
Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...
and Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
are some of the famous guests who stayed at the hotel. The hotel is now part of the Britannia Hotels
Britannia Hotels is a British hotel group with 63 hotels in Great Britain. Britannia operates at the budget end of the market, and includes the Pontins Holiday Park portfolio. In recent years, Britannia Hotels has been a subject of #Controversie ...
group and it has a spa, gym, indoor pool and conference rooms.{{Cite web, date=2018-05-31, title=Celebrating 150 years of the Palace Hotel Buxton, url=https://discoverbuxton.co.uk/tourism-news/celebrating-150-years-palace-hotel-buxton-2/, access-date=2020-06-10, website=Discover Buxton, language=en
See also
*Listed buildings in Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, High Peak district of Derbyshire, England. The town contains 93 Listed building#England and Wales, listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is ...
References