A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 6. BUXTON From the forts which constitute the chief feature in Romano-British Derbyshire, we pass to other aspects of this region connected not with war, but with the activities of peace. These aspects are, perhaps, limited in extent and importance. But they are not without their points of special interest, and they widen our knowledge of Roman Britain in several directions. We begin with Buxton. Here was the one place in our island, besides Bath, where medicinal springs were definitely used during the Roman period and fitted with buildings suitable to bathers. Everywhere else the healing waters either were still unknown or at the best provided ill-understood remedies for the ailments of a few neigh- bouring peasants. Even Roman Buxton was not a large town or an important spa. It compares ill with Roman Bath. But it is the only spot that can compare with it, and its significance, if small, is real. Buxton lies about 1,000 feet above sea level among the North Derbyshire highlands. Its one important feature is its waters. These are, or rather were, of two kinds. One is a cold chalybeate spring which till lately rose from a bed of shale that here intervenes between the limestone and the millstone grit formations. The other is, and probably always has been, far more important. It is a tepid water which issues from several con- tiguous fissures in the limestone in considerable abundance, and is potent to cure gout and rheumatism and neuralgia. l All the springs, cold and tepid, are close together at the bottom of a little valley. Apart from these healing waters Buxton has little to attract inhabitants. Its cold climate and severe scenery appeal to the vigorous tastes of to-day. But that is a modern sentiment. The eighteenth century judged otherwise. Leigh calls the situation ' inhospitable to mankind and indulgent to wolves and beasts of prey.' Stukeley speaks of ' the poverty and horror of these Alpine regions,' and Aikin of the ' naked and dreary hills.' A French geologist who travelled widely through Great Britain in 1784 is still more precise : Buxton est le pays le plus triste, le plus sombre, quc je connoisse. L'air qu'on y respire est impregnd de deuil et de melancolie. 8 So, too, in all probability, the ancients. In their attitude to wild nature they closely resembled the eighteenth century. They loved a soft air and a civilized prospect, and we may well believe that Buxton had few charms for Roman or Romanized Briton. We must not expect to find there the marks of a fashionable or a wealthy settlement. Camden was the first to call Buxton a Roman site. He knew, indeed, of no Roman remains at the place. But he noticed that a Roman road, the Bathamgate, led thither, and he therefore conjectured that the 1 The temperature is 82 F. (28 Centigrade), and the outflow of one principal section of the springs is estimated at 186,000 gallons a day. At Bath the temperature is about 120 F., and the outflow is estimated roughly at nearly 500,000 gallons. 8 B. Faujas de Saint Fond, Voyage en Angleterre (Paris, 1797), ii. 310. The book was written at the time of the tour, but printed much later. 222
