Cavendish Shopping Arcade

Cavendish Shopping Arcade

This building began as Buxton Thermal Baths, reconstructed in 1853 by architect Henry Currey. It was remodelled in 1900 by William Radford Bryden and converted into a shopping arcade between 1984 and 1987 by Derek Latham and Company.

The building is faced in ashlar gritstone with ashlar gritstone dressings. The roof is principally covered in Welsh slate, with a stained-glass barrel vault roof over part of the central courtyard and flat roofs elsewhere under bituminous covering. Timber and glass shopfronts line the south and north elevations.

The plan is complex, comprising several elements from different building phases arranged around an infilled central courtyard. The overall form is rectangular. The building is predominantly one storey in height, with two taller later elements: a two-storey element with a pitched roof at the western corner and a three-storey element with a hipped roof within the infilled courtyard.

The principal elevation faces south and features a Neoclassical arcade of ten bays beneath an entablature and balustraded parapet topped with urns in two alternating styles. The round arches have keystones and moulded imposts, flanked by clustered pilasters. Large two-pane sash windows now serve as shopfronts, with building entrances within the third and eighth arches. The two central arches retain historic timber doorways with large fanlights. The stonework of the two central arches is rusticated, and above them the parapet is solid rather than balustraded, incised with the lettering BUXTON BATHS. A narrow single-storey link with a pedimented doorway adjoins The Crescent to the west. The principal elevation continues around a curved corner onto the eastern elevation by one bay; the rest of the eastern frontage is formed by The Colonnade (separately listed Grade II).

The north elevation fronting George Street comprises three elements. The north-east corner is a single-storey curved shop unit with large timber-framed windows and stone parapet, forming part of The Colonnade. The central element is single-storey with three large windows beneath unadorned, square-headed ashlar surrounds and a stone parapet with ashlar string course above. An ashlar string course also runs roughly halfway up the window surrounds. The north-west corner is a two-storey element with six bays on the north elevation and two wide bays on the west, beneath a pitched roof. Three large windows and a doorway have unadorned, square-headed ashlar surrounds with a cill band running across, broken by the doorway. A small additional window sits immediately east of the doorway with matching ashlar surrounds.

The west elevation has two blocked windows matching those on the north elevation but without cill band. The first floor has six windows on the north elevation and two on the west, all of matching design to the ground floor. A cill band runs at first-floor level along both elevations, with a string course above the first-floor windows. Above this is a stone parapet on the north elevation and a gable wall on the west with a small rectangular opening. South of the two-storey element on the west is a single-storey adjoining element with a modern garage door and large pedimented parapet. The remainder of the west elevation serves as a service area.

Internally, the original layout of the baths remains legible, with two small baths on display. The corridors are understood to retain glazed and coloured tiles from around 1900 and ornate tiled doorways, some round-headed with keystones, others square-headed with cornices and keystones. The decoration includes floriated swags, fruit and foliage. A stained-glass barrel-vaulted roof spans part of the central courtyard.