is a village in the
High Peak of
Derbyshire ,
England .It is about two miles from
Whaley Bridge and about eighteen miles southeast of
Manchester .
The village was originally called Bugsworth, but in the early 20th century, some residents 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.
Little Bugsworth improves its name Christian Science Monitor Boston, Mass. August 1930 No regard was paid to the ancient origins of the village name, which can be traced back to Norman times.
In 1999 the local High Peak Borough Council council spent £350 to organise a ballot of the 600 members of the local population. The result was 233 to 139 to keep the name as BuxworthNigel Bunyan
Buxworth result no change Daily Telegraph May 1999. However the village is still generally referred to as 'Buggy' by locals.
The
Peak Forest Canal terminates here at
Bugsworth Basin (the renaming of the village had no effect on the name of the canal 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. 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 .
The village is split into two by the
Whaley Bridge –
Chapel-en-le-Frith bypass (A6), constructed in the 1980s.
John Cotton who was the last man to be hanged in
Derby Gaol in 1898, had committed the murder of his wife in Bugsworth basin after drinking heavily in the Rose & Crown (now demolished) at Bugsworth
Bugsworth Basin at Buxton.uk.net accessed June 2007
The Bugsworth murderer .
Buxworth went on to play for
Derbyshire for over fourteen seasons, scoring over 12,000 first class runs.
Alan Hill at CricInfo
Brierley Green adjoins Buxworth and in the early 1800s it was the home of the Clayton family. The eldest son, Joel Henry Clayton
City of Clayton website , emigrated to the USA to live with an uncle at
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . Other members of the Clayton family followed him and eventually they settled in a valley at the foot of
Mount Diablo , some 30 miles from
San Francisco ,
California where they founded
Clayton . Buxworth and Clayton are now
Twinned .
Navigation Inn web-site
[http://www.chinleyandbuxworth-pc.gov.uk Parish council web-site]
