THE PICK OF THE CROP
Buxton, Derbyshire
Who needs Volvic or Vittel? At St Ann’s Well in Buxton, a woman in a bright-red coat with a flotilla of empty five-litre containers at her feet is filling up. “It’s for my daughter,” she says, snapping on surgical gloves and sticking the neck of the bottle under a spout adorned with a bronze lion head. “She gets through one of these every two or three days.”
Behind her is a perfect view of the new jewel in the crown of the Derbyshire spa town: the Buxton Crescent Hotel. After opening late last year with 81 rooms and everything the modern spa-goer could dream of, from mineral baths and a salt cave to a mud room and rooftop pool, it closed only five weeks later, another victim of the pandemic.
Its re-opening tomorrow catapults Buxton, a cluster of domes and tawny stone surrounded by serious hills, into an oddly tiny group. It’s one of the few historic British spa towns to have made the transition to contemporary wellness destination while still using their source water and sometimes their original buildings, all of which gives a pleasing historical continuity to something we all love: a spa break.
This is perfectly normal in Europe, particularly the further east you go: Ensana, the company managing the hotel, is the spa arm of Danubius, which was started by the Hungarian state in 1972 to revive its own hotels. It was the
spring beneath the Crescent, as much as the building itself, that caught the company’s interest.
The British spa town template is, of course, Bath, the spa supernova in Somerset. This year it celebrates 15 years since it launched (also with long delays) its hugely popular modern complex, the Thermae Bath Spa, and 130 years since the momentous discovery that the fashionable health spot was sitting on top of a massive Roman bathing complex.
I know – you’d think they would have noticed! But while the King’s Bath, which has Roman foundations, was widely used for curative purposes in the Georgian period and a now-famous head of Minerva was discovered in 1727, the scale and quality of the remains were not fully realised until 1880. And from the pages of Northanger Abbey to the smoking hot scenes of Bridgerton, it’s clear that to many Georgian or Regency visitors, taking the waters meant drinking them, not bathing in them. You can still do so, sipping from little paper cups. It’s revolting.
Buxton was relatively late to the party, but joined in thanks to William Cavendish, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, owner of Chatsworth, some 15 miles away, and of land in town right beside the springs.
“The Duke suffered from ill health and did go to Bath,” explains Netta Christie, of Discover Buxton Tours. “But it wasn’t easy to get to, even from the south, so he thought: ‘I’ve got all that water at home – why not build my own?’”
He commissioned James Carr of York to build a south-east facing crescent of pale-gold stone with his coat of arms on the parapet (the antlers are real, replaced with naturally shed antlers from Chatsworth). It was next to Old Hall, now a hotel but then famed as the lodgings of Mary, Queen of Scots, who used the springs for her rheumatism. She visited often over 11 years, guarded by about 100 armed men.
The Duke’s new crescent blocked the town’s access to the springs, so the water, free by law, was pumped over the road to St Ann’s Well. Buxtonians amble up day in and day out to fill containers of varying sizes: it’s like an incredibly healthy petrol station. They must have wondered, as they did so, if their crescent was ever going to revive.
Many knew it well: after its relatively brief heyday, the two hotels and fashionable lodgings within gradually declined. The east end became council offices and the Assembly Rooms a superbly grand public library, until the weight of the books made the building sag. There was even, for a while, a club with a bar and dance floor in the basement. Things could have been very different: at one point it was slated to be a care home.
You can tell how thrilled people are about its revival. Even its antlers look perky, up among the domes and rooftops. Pictures were proffered on phones: a pool with a ceiling of stars, the Bath-Thermae-style outdoor rooftop pool and restaurant terrace below, white salt, taupe mud. There must have been a dash for a look, or a stay, before lockdown kicked in.
Long after Mary, Queen of Scots, was a regular – she probably accessed the spring from some sort of courtyard – the source springs between Old Hall and the Crescent were improved by the Victorians. They added glass roofs and decoration and ran the steamy water through a class system of baths, in strict order of merit: Gentlemen’s No 1, Gentlemen’s No 2, Ladies’ Bath and the Paupers’ down Bath Alley at the back.
Part of this Grade II-listed system has been incorporated into today’s huge spa, which sprawls across three floors of the hotel. Its Thermal Bath is filled daily with spring water at its natural 27 degrees (Bath’s is about 40). The Relax Pool (with the starry ceiling) uses treated spring water, and the swimming pools, I was told, “Severn Trent’s finest”. The brick storage arches in the basement are now cosy treatment rooms.
It’s not all for spa guests. At the east end of the crescent eight rooms contain the Buxton Crescent Experience, which tells the history of the spa and is linked to the visitor centre in the Pump Room opposite. And for 60 days a year, the town gets to use the Assembly Rooms and the parlour, grand staircase and bar below, normally a venue for the hotel.
Even without all that Buxtonians have a massive choice of activities: starting with the Peak District National Park, which surrounds the town on three sides. Then there’s pottering in the Cavendish Arcade, once home to the Hot Baths, with eau de nil tiles and stained glass to prove it, and now full of shops. Nip into Charlotte’s Chocolatier and Café and tuck into crumpets for tea, check out the Derbyshire Blue John jewellery in Jantar or browse the gorgeous gifts in Isla’s airy doublefronted store.
Outdoors, 23 acres of Victorian gardens are flanked by an iron-and-glass Victorian structure, with the Octagon for concerts at one end (the Beatles played here – honestly) and a theatre
Mary, Queen of Scots, visited the springs for rheumatism, guarded by about 100 armed men
and cinema at the other. This, with St John’s Church and the glorious Buxton Opera House, forms the hub of the Buxton International Festival (BIF), now 42 years old and set to go ahead this July.
In pre-Covid 2020, the festival sold 36,000 tickets for opera, musicals, concerts and celebrity book talks, plus a Fringe with comedy, street theatre and children’s show. It’s gamely running a full – if socially distanced – programme this year. That’s pretty amazing, for a town of 24,000 people 1,000ft above sea level in the south Pennines. All it’s been missing is a really good spa.
BUXTON CRESCENT HOTEL SPA Taster Weekends from £260 a room (ensanahotels.com/buxton). Buxton International Festival July 8 to 25 (buxtonfestival.co.uk); Discover Buxton Tours (discoverbuxton.co.uk); for more information, visit visitpeakdistrict.com
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Tropez treatments, but sadly no orange chalybeate options.
SOOTH & STAY A Relax Spa Break includes dinner, breakfast and two 25-minute treatments from £199 per person (01892 553590; spahotel.co.uk)
Inner circle: a bird’s eye view of the Buxton Crescent Hotel
MALVERN HILLS Worcestershire/Herefordshire
This stunning range of hills, topped by Worcester Beacon 1,300ft above sea level, divides Worcester from Hereford and has been famous for its water – now bottled as Holywell Malvern Spring Water – for centuries. You can hike four miles from Great Malvern up to Little Malvern via Malvern Wells (where Holywell is bottled), filling your water bottle as you go. St Ann’s Well above Great Malvern, which has a sweet little café in the 1838 well house, the Devil’s Well near Malvern Wells and the Evendine Spring near Little Malvern. Those are just for starters – for spring hopping and great information see malvernspa.org. The Malvern Spa Hotel, a couple of miles north of Great Malvern, will be fully open on May 17, with a crystal steam room, adventure showers, salt grotto, saunas and an indoor/outdoor hydrotherapy pool.
SOOTH & STAY A Deluxe One Night Spa Break costs from £344 per room, including early check in, dinner allowance, breakfast and a treatment each (01684 898290; themalvernspa.com)
ROYAL LEAMINGTON SPA Warwickshire
The “Royal” was bestowed by Queen Victoria, but Leamington waters were discovered in the 18th century, with the first well appearing in 1803 and the Pump Room a decade later. Leamington is relatively low-lying and the River Leam is lined with green spaces, including the Pump Room Gardens and Jephson Gardens, both Grade II-listed, which flank the elegant shopping drag of the Parade. Add charming Regency terraces, and you’ve got a very handsome town. A statue commemorates the first public well house, Aylesford’s, and you can try the water outside the Pump Room. There’s rather a jolly Taking the Waters Trail online at royal-leamington-spa.co.uk. Mallory Court Hotel & Spa is a 43-room Lutyens-esque former private house, set in 10 acres of grounds three miles south of the town centre. SOOTH & STAY One Night ESPA Pamper Breaks from £239 per person, based on two sharing, including an ESPA treatment per person, one hour prebooked spa use, dinner and breakfast (01926 330214; mallory.co.uk)