Buxton is England's highest market town, give or take a rival's claim, perched at about three hundred meters in the hills of the Peak District, and it has the cool, brisk air to prove it. The Romans knew the place for its warm spring, which rises from deep in the limestone at a constant temperature of about twenty-eight degrees, and named it Aquae Arnemetiae. In the eighteenth century the Duke of Devonshire turned it into a fashionable spa, building the great Crescent in the 1780s, a curved Georgian terrace modeled on Bath.
The town is full of well-kept Georgian and Victorian architecture. The Opera House, a gilded theater from 1903 by Frank Matcham, hosts an annual festival, and the Pavilion Gardens, with their glass pavilion, make a pleasant park. St Ann's Well, a public fountain outside the Crescent, lets you fill a bottle with the warm, soft spring water, and Buxton Water is bottled and sold across the country.
For motorcyclists, Buxton has a mixed reputation, because it is the gateway to some famous, and notorious, roads. The A537 over the Cat and Fiddle, a high moorland road toward Macclesfield, is a fast and exciting run with sweeping bends and big views, but it has a long history of accidents and is heavily policed, with reduced limits and cameras. The A515 and A53 lead through limestone dales and over open moor, with stone walls, sheep and sudden views, and the White Peak lanes are narrower and quieter. The weather is the issue: Buxton is damp, misty and cold even in summer, and the moors are exposed.
Buxton has fuel, supermarkets, pubs and cafes, and it is a convenient stop. Chapel-en-le-Frith, nearby, has more. The best months are May to September, though morning fog and sudden rain are common, and winter ice on the moor roads can be dangerous. Weekends are busy with bikers, cyclists and walkers, so weekdays are quieter.