Buxton

 It seems like an age ago we were dropping Missy off to start her second year at Uni, but in reality it was only about 6 weeks ago.  Oxford was less than a 3 hour drive from Liverpool/Birkenhead but we had planned to take a couple of days to ourselves on the way back.  We stayed one night in Stratford and for the second night we drove up to Buxton, on the edge of the Peak District.  From there it would be relatively easy cross-country dash to Birkenhead.  I'd never been to that part of the country before so it was all new to me.  Buxton is, or was, a Spa town, of which there are a few dotted around England - Bath being perhaps the most famous.  I was looking forward to it.  

The drive North was straightforward enough with Sat-Nav, although there were a couple of times I'd have been totally flummoxed without it, having to switch lanes right and then left in quick succession.  We started out on the A3400, which you could say was the picturesque route through that part of the Cotswolds north of Oxford, by way of a succession of rather easy-on-the-eye villages.  It was vaguely familiar to me, since for a year I used to drive from my placement year in Solihull back and forth to Oxford to meet up with my brother and friends, but that was nearly 40 years ago so things had changed a bit in that time.  I never remembered any A3400, but I was certain it was the same road and then I passed a sign that read, "A3400, formerly the A34".  Ah...now it made sense!  The A34 definitely rang some bells.  It's not a road to drive if you are in a hurry, though, as each village had a strict 40mph limit - reinforced by a hellish number of fixed speed cameras dotted about.  Fair enough - we weren't in a rush.  We kept to the backroads all the way North and eventually the landscape changed from Cotswoldy-twee-ness to a more rural environment, with sheep and mile upon mile of dry-stone walls.  Eventually we hit our destination, dumped the car at the hotel and headed off to explore the Spa Town of Buxton.  

No offence to the good people of Buxton, but it was nothing like I expected.  I guess it didn't help that our hotel (Premier Inn, dependably clean and comfortable) was on the less salubrious side of town, so our walk into the centre didn't fire our senses with anticipation of what was to come.  By the time we hit the main drag it was late afternoon and most places seemed to be on the verge of closing, or had closed.  There weren't a lot of people about but there seemed to be a lot of pet shops.  A lot.  And the town looked and felt nothing like Bath, with its wonderful architecture and lively ambiance. We started to look around for places where we might eat later on.  We didn't find any.  Well, there was a fish and chip shop/restaurant but my wife took one look at it and said No, so that was that.  Behind the main square the land fell away quite steeply and we realised that was where the 'Spa' part of Buxton lay, so we girded our loins, headed downwards and tried not to think about the steep uphill walk back.

Buxton.  The fancy part.  OM4ti, HP5+ on Ilford MG Classic

Once we got down the hill the architecture looked more like the Spa town we had been expecting.  There was a Georgian crescent (pictured), impressive looking domed buildings and what seemed to be a rather beautiful park.  This is more like it, we thought.  We dropped into a hotel for a small libation in one of the nicer buildings (from the outside) and quickly dropped out again.  Inside it looked very tired and strangely quiet, so we resorted to another aimless dander about.  We poked our heads into a large pub but it was jammed packed and noisy so we didn't stop (it looked like a Wetherspoon's and therefore not the authentic Buxton experience that we were after).  The next pub we came across, which looked promising from the outside, turned out to be closed down.  We never did find anywhere to eat (we ate back at the hotel - it seemed like the safest option).  We found more pet shops, though.  

So that was our experience of Buxton and we won't be back.  Granted we only had one evening in the town and perhaps if we'd only walked a little further we'd have come across all manner of lovely restaurants, bars and bistros - but on this occasion they eluded us.  We left with the impression Buxton's best days are well and truly behind it.