Dr Alan Roberts will be giving a public lecture at the University of Derby, Buxton campus on Sunday 10th September at 3.00pm on the RAF Bomb Store at Harpur Hill.

The official name of the bomb store was RAF Maintenance Unit 28, which operated from December 1939 to November 1960. MU 28 was of high strategic importance throughout the war. The major storage area was a reinforced concrete structure of novel design, covered with quarry waste to conceal and protect it, supplied from a railway siding. A large area of surrounding land housed many additional, smaller scale, facilities.

Dr Alan Roberts talk will cover the design of the structure, construction difficulties and problems arising during its operation, together with the Unit's involvement in the early days of Mountain Rescue and its legacy in terms of housing, buildings later used to house the College of Further Education and even a Mushroom Farm!

Details of the event will be posted on the Heritage Open Day website - see link below

Buxton Advertiser article from 2014

BCA article on Maintenance Unit 28

Heritage Open Day website

Celebrating 50 years "Remember the Past, Shape the Future."

Inspired by the book "Remember the Past, Shape the Future." By Olive Middleton and Dr Trevor Donald, BCA have made a film to celebrate their 50th Anniversary. The film was shown for the first time tonight (18th May) at the Devonshire Dome as part of the celebrations.

You can watch the film by clicking on the link below. Alyson Phillips has written a short piece about the film which you can read on this website.

The Film of the Book - by Alyson Phillips

The making of "Remember the Past, Shape the Future"

This film, promoting the work of BCA, was inspired by the book, Remember the Past, Shape the Future written by Olive Middleton and Trevor Donald, to celebrate the first 50 years of Buxton Civic Association.

A young student asked, ‘...so what does civic mean?’ Our film aims to be BCA's answer to this question.

Civic obligation, and its links to citizenship, is as important today as it has ever been. It concerns our shared duties and relationships, rights and responsibilities to care for where we live.

The film has been made by members and staff of BCA with original music, 'Poole's Theme', composed and performed by local musicians.

We set out to contrast Buxton 'then and now' in order to ask the question, 'What would Buxton have been like in May 2017 without the BCA?' We promote the efforts of individuals, who became the founders of BCA, and made a difference. The tradition of membership continues to shape the future of this unique town.
Fifty years ago anything Victorian was seen as expendable. The Pavilion Gardens could have become a private zoo, the Octagon a casino and Buxton's rail links were set to be axed. Buxton's River Wye was polluted, and lime dust from quarries and lorries caused concerns over poor air.

Buxton Civic Association generally challenged the local authority over these plans and lack of public consultation. They went on to create Buxton Country Park from woodland gifted to BCA by Chatsworth Estates and reopened Poole's Cavern.

Without this Civic Association, Buxton would have become a different place.
This promotional film is also a snapshot of a moment in time; this spring 2017, when Buxton Civic Association marks its 50th year. It raises awareness that it is up to us to help save, protect, repair, prevent, rejuvenate and pressurise.
Today BCA is a registered charity, managed by a board of volunteer directors, employs over twenty people, owns, preserves and maintains almost two hundred acres of land, including nine woods, and welcomes over forty-five thousand visitors a year to its show cave. We have an Environmental Quality Mark and maintain high standards to ensure a balance between safe public access and preservation of wildlife.

Volunteers work hard to help keep the woodlands maintained.

Volunteers work on our committees for Planning, Places and Spaces, Corporate Affairs, Membership and Community, and Woodlands.

Volunteer and you could be starring in the sequel!

A huge thank you to everyone who took part in the making of the film.

The film will be available to view by the public from 7.40pm this evening (18th May 2017). And will be available to view on this website.

I

It was good to see Ashfield U3A enjoying a relaxing and well deserved rest in the Cafe at the Cavern today. They had been walking from Brandside to the Race track and then back to Poole's Cavern via the Health and Safety site up at Harpur.

They do three walks a month and their next planned walking trip is to the Goyt Valley. Hopefully we will see them again soon.

Our latest walking guide is now available from Poole's Cavern Visitor Centre, price £2.50. Written by Lyn Noble it takes you on a journey to uncover the story behind 300 years of lime burning around Buxton. Ideal for individuals, groups or families.

An update from the Town Team on their plans for Christmas

We wrote recently to ask you to ‘Save the date’ for Christmas decorations and celebrations this year and, although you will probably have picked up information from the press and our website, we promised to let you have more detailed information, so here we are.

Buxton Town Team are inviting businesses, organisations, schools or families to adopt a spot to decorate in town. Please go to http://buxtontownteam.org/working-on/buxton-in-bloom-2016/buxton-bloomin-winter/ to ‘Adopt a Spot’, and register it for the list by sending us an email or phoning us. Feel free to put up a weather proof sign (no more than A4 size) saying who has decorated the Spot.

We are suggesting low, or no, cost decorations and give lots of ideas of stunning things to make so, on the same page just click on ‘some ideas’ for instruction sheets. The town colour scheme this year is red, green and gold. Flowerpot People can come out again dressed warmly for winter, if you still have them. We would like the decorations to be up by the morning of Saturday 3rd December please.

Saturday 3rd December 4.15 for 4.30 pm. We will all gather in Spring Gardens dressed up if you like but not compulsory! The theme is Peter Pan and Pirates. Our Christmas Carnival Parade, lit with lanterns and led by the Town Crier, will then make its way across Terrace Road, up The Slopes, over the Market Place finishing at the Pavilion Gardens for hot drinks and food. We will stop at various points along the way to regroup and sing seasonal songs; songsheets will be on the website nearer the time. Please remember to bring torches and wrap up warm.

Very importantly, by Saturday January 7th, each group will take down their decorations and either store them for next year or dispose of them.

Hope this helps, please get back to us if you need more information.

Buxton will have a Bloomin’ Brilliant Christmas this year – with your enthusiasm!

IF ANY MEMBERS OF BUXTON CIVIC ASSOCIATION ARE INTERESTED IN ADOPTING A SPOT SEND YOUR SUGGESTIONS TO US AT communications@buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk

Keith Worsencroft remembers an early dye test on Stanley Moor

You Tube Link to Dye Testing on Stanley Moor

Litter Picking Lovers Leap

The name Lovers Leap conjures up romantic and perhaps tragic associations. Once a popular spot with Victorian couples, it is less visited now and it is true that the years have rolled by without anyone paying much attention to the condition of this secluded beauty spot located just outside Buxton.

Even so, members of Buxton Civic Association where stunned by the tide of rubbish they encountered when they surveyed the site earlier this year. Both the gorge itself and the slopes above the western cliff-face were strewn not only with bottles and cans but also bits of car bodywork, dumped kitchen appliances and building materials.

On 1 April, a small team of BCA members began the clean-up of the partially terraced slopes above the western cliffs. BCA Business Development Manager, Simon Fussell asked team leader, Roger Floyd, on site, what the team had found there. He replied that, clearly, for a long while, pedestrians on Dukes Drive and people in passing vehicles had been throwing bottles, cans, fast-food containers and other litter over the boundary wall onto the site. But that was far from the whole story.

“Parking here is awkward and access to the site if you are carrying large or heavy items is difficult”, he continued. “Buxton has an easy-to-reach, convenient-to-use, recycling centre where anyone can dispose of reasonable amounts of any kind of waste. And yet, inexplicably, some people seem to have actually chosen to dump items on this beauty spot rather than at the recycling centre. “For example”, he added, pointing to a curious rectangular object near our feet, “this 60 kg concrete shower base”.

Earlier in the day, two of the team had found three abandoned tents on the site. One was full of old clothes. The other two were fully equipped with cooking gear and bedding. Everything was in an advanced state of decay but clearly, at some time in the not to distant past, more than one person had been living there and for an extended period.

Our team were certain that was an ‘extended period’ because amongst the other detritus were 16 two-litre bottles all filled with a yellow fluid. Alas, hopes that it was a collection of rare vintage French wines were soon dashed when one of the bottles was opened. One of our campers had been collecting his own urine. Why? We shall never know. But he certainly didn’t amass his stockpile overnight.

In the end the bottles were left in the tent where they were found. The tents were then bundled up and left on Dukes Drive with the 25 sacks of litter, the shower base and other debris that the team had gathered from the site. To its great credit, the Borough’s Street Care and Cleaning Service sent a truck immediately to pick it all up, even though it was now late on Friday afternoon.

We expect that another three clean-ups will be necessary to clear the whole site.

Anyone for a glass of Chardonnay?