Buxton Crescent
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Buxton Crescent is a Grade-I-
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
in the town of
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 owes much to the
Royal Crescent The Royal Crescent is a row of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping Crescent (architecture), crescent in the city of Bath, Somerset, Bath, England. Designed by the architect John Wood, the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774, it is a ...
in Bath, but has been described by the Royal Institution of British Architects as "more richly decorated and altogether more complex". It was designed by the architect John Carr of
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, and built for the 5th Duke of Devonshire between 1780 and 1789. In 2020, following a multi-year restoration and redevelopment project supported by the
National Heritage Memorial Fund The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...
and
Derbyshire County Council Derbyshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Derbyshire, England. It has 64 councillors representing 61 divisions, with three divisions having two members each. They are Glossop and Charlesworth, ...
, The Crescent was reopened as a 5-star spa hotel.


Setting

The Crescent faces the site of St Ann's Well, where warm spring water has flowed for thousands of years. The well is at the foot of The Slopes, a steep landscaped hillside in the centre of Buxton. Here the geological strata channel mineral water from a mile below ground, to emerge at a constant . Originally detached, the Crescent is now the centrepiece of an attached range of significant Georgian architecture facing The Slopes, flanked on either side by the Grade-II-listed
Buxton Baths The Buxton Baths using natural thermal spring water are in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The baths date back to Roman times and were the basis for developing Buxton as a Georgian and Victorian spa town. The present buildings of the Thermal Baths ...
, built by architect Henry Currey. To the west are the Natural Mineral Baths, built 1851–53; to the east are the Buxton Thermal Baths, built 1852–53. The Thermal Baths, closed in 1963 and at risk of demolition, underwent a major restoration led by conservation architects Latham & Company, with British artist
Brian Clarke Brian Clarke (born 2 July 1953) is a British painter, architectural artist and printmaker, known for his large-scale stained glass and mosaic projects, symbolist paintings, set designs, and collaborations with major figures in Modern and conte ...
commissioned to contribute to the refurbishment; his scheme, designed in 1984 and completed in 1987, was for a modern stained-glass artwork to enclose the former baths, creating an atrial space for what became the Cavendish Arcade, a collection of independent shops. At the time of its creation the largest stained-glass window in Britain, the landmark barrel-vaulted ceiling echoes the shape of the Crescent and adjacent Colonnade, a row of shops with a projecting canopy also by Currey. Across the forecourt of the Crescent, at the foot of The Slopes, are Currey's 1894 Pump Room; and the adjacent public drinking spout St Ann's Well, built ''c''.1940, the site of earlier wells dating back to the Roman period.


Original construction and use

The Crescent was built for William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire, as part of his scheme to establish Buxton as a fashionable
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
spa town. The facade forms an arc of a circle facing south-east. It was built as a unified structure incorporating a hotel, five lodging houses, and a grand assembly room with a fine painted ceiling. The Assembly Rooms became the social heart of 18th-century Buxton. On the ground floor arcade were shops (including a hair and wig-dresser) and kitchens were in the basement. The Great Stables were built in the 1780s (also designed by John Carr for the 5th Duke of Devonshire) to stable up to 120 horses of the guests of the Crescent. A huge central dome was later added and the building is now known as the
Devonshire Dome The Devonshire Dome building (previously known as the Devonshire Royal Hospital) is a Listed building, Grade II* listed 18th-century former Stable, stable block in Buxton, Derbyshire. It was built by John Carr (architect), John Carr of York and ...
.


Subsequent history

Over time, St. Ann's Hotel at the western end of the Crescent, and the Great Hotel, incorporating the Assembly Rooms at the eastern end, took over the intervening lodging houses in the centre of the building.


Twentieth century

The western end served as a hotel. The eastern end served as council offices, a library and a clinic. The hotel at the western end closed in the mid-1980s due to the high cost of necessary repairs. The whole building was closed when major structural problems were discovered in the assembly rooms, and by 1992 lay empty. The hotel part was bought by the local council in 1993, at which time the whole building fell into public ownership.


Restoration and re-opening

In 1993 with a grant from the
National Heritage Memorial Fund The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...
the
High Peak Borough Council High Peak Borough Council is the local authority for High Peak, a borough of Derbyshire, England. It forms part of the two-tier system of local government for High Peak, alongside Derbyshire County Council. The administrative base of High Peak B ...
purchased the Crescent to act as a temporary caretaker of the building until a suitable buyer could be found. A further £1.5 million from
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
was used to make the building weathertight. The Crescent, Pump Rooms and Natural Baths buildings were then jointly marketed by the borough and county councils. In 1994 the Monumental Trust proposed a scheme to convert the Crescent into flats; however, no funding was found. In December 2000 the combined councils applied to the
Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
to help finance plans to restore the Crescent as a hotel and to build new spa facilities. Funding was approved in July 2003. Work to restore, redevelop and manage the hotel and spa was put out to tender, which was won in December 2003 by a partnership of the Trevor Osborne Property Group Limited and CP Holdings Limited, the parent company of the spa hotel specialists Danubius hotels. The then £23 million plan was scheduled for completion in 2007. The project suffered a series of delays, including funding and technical and legal issues relating to the continued supply of water from springs beneath the buildings to
Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
, the bottler of Buxton Water, and it was not until April 2012 that an agreement between the joint councils and the developer to start the first phase of the project could be signed. Phase one work on the then £35 million project for a 79-bedroom 5-star hotel, natural baths, a visitor interpretation centre, a thermal mineral water spa and specialist shops commenced in the summer of 2012. Funding problems delayed the main part of project further, but with a loan guarantee from Derbyshire County Council of £11.4 million and an additional grant of £11.3 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund announced in 2014, work resumed in 2015. In October 2018, with the project still incomplete, Derbyshire County Council agreed to invest a further £5.7 million, with the total project cost rising to £68.4 million. The total funds provided by DCC to the project are around £13.5 million. In 2019 it was announced that the hotel would be opening in May 2020 under the Ensana brand; however, works to prepare the hotel for opening were further delayed during the 2020
COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in confir ...
. In October 2020 Ensana reopened the hotel following the 17 years-long refurbishment.


See also

*
Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire There are over 9000 Grade I listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the county of Derbyshire, sub-divided by district. Amber Valley Bolsover Chesterfield City of Derby ...
*
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


External links


High Peak Council Press ReleaseArticle with picture of Assembly Room ceiling
Visit Buxton
Article with Image of Buxton Crescent in 1795
Royal Institute of British Architects
Newsletter of the regeneration project
Buxton Crescent Hotel & Thermal Spa *Articles with photo galleries o

http://www.ipeak.co.uk/lifestyle_leisure/local_history/buxthennow/hotels/hotels-hydros-buxton.html#crescenthotels Crescent Hotel
Pump Room
iPeak {{Derbyshire Places of interest Residential buildings completed in 1789 Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire Grade I listed houses Houses in Derbyshire
Crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is often shown wearing a crescent moon on his ...
Crescents (architecture) 1789 establishments in England