Buxton Crescent, Buxton, Derbyshire
A case study for Historic England's Enhanced Advisory Services
A magnificent Grade I listed Georgian building, the Crescent was designed at the request of the Duke of Devonshire as a set of lodging houses and hotels to promote Buxton as a fashionable spa town to rival Bath. The Crescent includes a suite of historic pools and baths where people could take treatments, including baths of peat brought down from the moors.
As developer of the Buxton Crescent Hotel and Thermal Spa Project (with joint venture partner), Trevor Osborne Limited enjoyed an excellent working relationship with Historic England.
They were readily available at all stages of the project to provide both pragmatic and helpful advice on conservation matters as well as committing their own grant funding to support specific elements of the scheme. Their partnership and commitment to the project alongside us was recognised in the East Midlands Constructing Excellence Project of the Year Award 2022.
The Crescent lay derelict for many years and was on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register but has since been transformed into a 5-star luxury hotel incorporating a visitor centre open to the public.
Historic England was an integral part of the project team at the Crescent from the beginning, working with the developer (Trevor Osborne Limited), the hotel operator, the 2 local authority owners and the National Lottery as a major funder. This integrated approach meant we could respond swiftly to the technical challenges of creating a luxury hotel in a building which stood over the source of Buxton mineral water, suggest creative solutions to the changes required to support a 5-star hotel experience and provide confidence-boosting funding to ensure the project continued at a key point when other funding was lost.
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