The dome covers an area of nearly half an acre, and is said to be one of the largest in the world. Under its vast expanse between 5,000 and 6,000 people can assemble without overcrowding. A perfect echo, like that in the Baptistry at Pisa, is heard slightly away from beneath its centre.
The hospital is open to the inspection of visitors from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at a small charge, which is appropriated for the purpose of purchasing books for the library, a great boon to the crippled patients.
The Palace Hotel, a large and imposing building, stands within its own grounds, beautifully situated and laid out, close to the London and North-Western and Midland Railway
stations. Being elevated considerably above the town, a panoramic view of Higher and Lower Buxton, St. Ann’s Cliff, Broad Walk, the Crescent, and Buxton Gardens is obtained from its windows, and in the distance Axe Edge, 1,950ft., Harpur Hill, Diamond Hill (so-called from the Derbyshire diamond being found there), Solomon’s Temple, and Hindlow are in full view.
There are many other buildings worthy of notice, amongst which I may mention the churches of St. John and St. James, Pavilion Music Hall, Theatre, Union Club, the Buxton, Peak, and Haddon Grove Hydropathic Establishments. As the town is rapidly extending, many very pretty villas have recently sprung up in the park and neighbourhood, from whence are obtained the finest views of Buxton and the surrounding hills.
Buxton is well supplied with places of public worship, St. John’s, St. James’s, St. Anne’s, and Trinity, belonging to the Church of England; Hardwick Street Chapel, Congregationalists; the Park and Market Place Chapels, Wesleyan
Methodists; London Road Chapel, Primitive Methodists; St. Ann’s Chapel, Terrace Road, Roman Catholic; and Harrington Road Chapel, Unitarian. The Presbyterians hold services every Sunday (during the season) in the Town Hall, morning and evening.
The staple industry of Buxton and the neighbourhood consists in the burning of limestone, and the manufacture of inlaid marble vases, tables, &c, some of which are tastefully designed, and form very elegant and beautiful ornamental decorations for the drawing-room, &c.
The naturalist, the botanist, and the geologist will find Nature’s hand-book, spread wide open over the hills and dales of the Peak, for their inspection. The archæologist and the antiquarian may wander to the top of Cowlow, Ladylow, Hindlow, Hucklow, or Grindlow, and picture in imagination the savage and warlike aborigines of the High Peak, wending their way up the precipitous sides of the hill, carrying their dead chieftain to his last resting-place on the mountain summit, where, placing him in a
cyst, made of rough unhewn stones, they cover him up with earth, leaving his spirit to find its way to the happy hunting-grounds of the unseen; or watch the wild and barbarous rites performed by the Druidical priest within the precincts of Arbor Low Circle; or contemplate the savage hordes of Danes, as they lie encamped on the slopes of Priestcliff; or follow the footsteps of a hardy cohort of Rome’s picked soldiers, as it moves with steady precision through the High Peak Forest, and ascends the rugged side of Coomb’s Moss, to pitch a camp on the spur of Castle Naze.