Buxton Civic Association Newsletter Issue 36 Spring 2017 1967 Celebrating Fifty Years 2017 My Visit to Poole’s Cavern in the 1950’s—By Brian Lawrence Poole’s Cavern in 1971, five years after it closed and six years before BCA rescued it. The building in the picture has now been demolished but Brian refers to it in his article. Photo—from BCA Archive Brian Lawrence and his team of volunteers are currently updating the Archive.
In grim post-war austerity Britain, my mother sent me one summer from Nottingham to Buxton, to stay for two weeks with her cousin, Mrs. Appleton, in Crowestones. I travelled by bus, one of those splendid pre-war rounded coaches with plush seats. I got off next to the Crescent. In Crowestones, across the road, lived my great-aunt, Mrs. Lee, whose husband, Fred, was manager of Lennards shoe shop in Spring Gardens. It was the tradition that every Sunday afternoon Uncle Fred would lead his family on a walk through Buxton. Sometimes it was Ashwood Dale Park, sometimes the Pavilion Gardens, then totally enclosed by iron railings and where we paid one penny to enter through the turnstile next to the Opera House. This Sunday, he led us up Green Lane to Poole’s Cavern, where we entered through the turnstile on the road, and into a strange collection of white marble statues and urns, and some half-wooden kiosks, very Gothic in design. The most fascinating was the quaint building near the kiosk now called the Monkey House. It contained a collection of weird objects, fascinating to a schoolboy, the strangest being a doubleheaded stuffed lamb. I can’t remember whether we entered the Cavern itself then or later, but when we did squeeze through the entrance, emerging into the first huge chamber, it was like suddenly being transported to another world. It was so cold. It was wet; the paths and steps were slippery. The string of gas lamps emitted a soft yellow glow, which mellowed the surrounding limestone. The guide, using a long stick-hook, switched off lamps as we progressed, switching on the next few. So we were trapped, between the darkness behind, and the unknown darkness ahead, inducing claustrophobia and a hint of fear. What we then saw in the various chambers is much as today (though greatly enhanced).
Leaving the Cave, we walked down Temple Road, Broad Walk, and back to tea at Crowestones, at my cousin’s house where the trains literally chugged past the back door. 1