Buxworth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Buxworth originally Bugsworth, which seemed to offend 'pious ears' – hence the change – is a village in the Blackbrook valley in the borough of High Peak , Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District of England's Pennine Range. It is about two miles from Whaley Bridge and about eighteen miles southeast of Manchester .
The Peak Forest Canal terminates here at Bugsworth Basin, which was re-opened on the 26 March 2005 having been restored by the Inland Waterways Protection Society, and, once again, the canal now ends at its original terminus. It is used entirely for recreational purposes.
The canal never reached Peak Forest but limestone from quarries near Dove Holes was, between 1796 and 1922, transported to the basin by way of the Peak Forest Tramway – a distance of some six miles. Its track bed can still be discerned in places (e.g. at Whitehough, close to Chinley, and just beyond the end of the bypass on the way south to Buxton).
A main railway line (Sheffield to Manchester) passes to the north of the village but the village is split into two by the Whaley Bridge–Chapel-en-le-Frith bypass (A6), constructed in the 1980s. The railway was originally the Midland Railway's main line to London, built in 1867 as part of the extension of its Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway, and in 1894 the Midland built the line from Dore which is what exists today as the Hope Valley line. Almost as soon as it was built a landslip destroyed the viaduct. Some four hundred men constructed drainage channels and built a new timber viaduct, which served until 1885 when the present one was built. A tunnel to the north of the station collapsed during building, trapping a gang of navvies, who were close to death by the time they were rescued. In 1903 when the line upgraded to four tracks, the tunnel was opened out into a cutting. There was a station at Buxworth which closed in 1958.
In the centre of the village there is a pub down by the canal basin, appropriately named the Navigation Inn http://www.navigationinn.co.uk. There is also a fine cricket ground in the southern part of the village and a footbridge across the bypass leading to it from the northern side.
By the early 20th century, some residents of Bugsworth began to dislike the name of their village and their cause was championed by the local vicar, Dr J R Towers, and the village school headmaster, Mr W T Prescott. As a result of the efforts of these two residents, Bugsworth officially became Buxworth on the 16 April 1930. No regard was paid to the ancient origins of the village name, which can be traced back to Norman times. The canal basin retained the ancient name of Bugsworth.
Brierley Green adjoins Buxworth and in the early 1800s it was the home of the Clayton family. The eldest son was Joel Henry Clayton and he emigrated to the USA to live with an uncle at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Other members of the Clayton family followed him and eventually they settled at Clayton set in a beautiful valley at the foot of Mount Diablo, some 30 miles from San Francisco, California. As a result of this, the villages of Buxworth and Clayton are now twinned.
- Aerial photo (with the cricket pitch clearly discernible!)
- Map and other aerial photo sources
