Welcome | About Buxton | Victorian Buxton | About Us | Links In 1840 Dr. A. B. Granville, a writer on spas, described Buxton as having a shortage of good, comfortable lodging houses and he made a number of suggestions for improvement which, to some extent, anticipated the development of the spa from this time onwards. From 1850 Buxton began to grow from a village to a busy and fashionable spa, an inland resort whose visitors increased the population threefold during the season. Many people came to take the wide range of treatments on offer at the natural and thermal baths and, later, at one the hydropathic hotels. Others came to rest and recuperate, yet others to enjoy the sport and pastimes available in the Derbyshire Peak District. The shaping of the town was greatly influenced by a small number of notable characters including the Dukes of Devonshire, principally the 6th (the Bachelor Duke) and the 7th, their Agents, and Dr. W. H. Robertson, author of the extremely popular Handbook to the Peak of Derbyshire, and longtime Chairman of the Devonshire Hospital Charity. Other notables were members of the Local Board, Directors of the Buxton Improvements Company, Trustees of the Devonshire Hospital and local businessmen. Much of the Victorian/Edwardian town can be seen in the built environment today and a walk in the town will reveal much of its fascinating past. Source: Mike Langham & Colin Wells, Buxton: A Pictorial History, Phillimore, Sussex, 1993. © Mike Langham & Colin Wells 1993 and 1999.