Belle Skinner Journal Tuesday, August 23, 1887
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Tuesday, Aug. 23
We left Bradford at ten o’clock this morning, and arrived at Buxton at about three in the afternoon. We could not get rooms at the Palace Hotel, where we tried first, but after a little, secured very good rooms at the Royal. Father, Queen and I took a walk around the town and sent a cablegram home. When we returned to the hotel, Father got a carriage and we all went to dinner. Buxton is a beautiful place, a summer resort noted for its baths and waters. The hotels and parks are very fine. After our dinner, we visited Poole’s Cavern, perhaps the most wonderful thing we have yet seen. It is a natural cave one mile long, tho’ only open to visitors for a quarter of a mile. At places it is windy and seventy feet high while at the opening it is only four. Our guide lighted the gas jets as we went along, so at the end, looking back we had a magnificent view of it all. The cave and all its curiosities are made either by the
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wearing actions of water, or objects formed by its constant dripping. We were shown a hole worn in a rock by water dripping for ages in the same spot, also a huge pillar formed by dripping water petrifying. We saw two formations representing a lion an elephant, and oysters. Running through the cavern is a natural cascade. In one part the rocks look like the pipes of an organ, and are transparent; shown by holding a lighted torch behind them. Coming out of the cave, we visited a museum connected with it, in which we saw human bones, rings, breast-pins, bangles etc. taken from the cave. I forgot to mention that the cave was formerly used as a place of retreat by the Romans and it is their remains and jewelry which are now dug out. Some teeth found a short time ago, are wonderfully well preserved. In this museum too is a very fine collection of old books, four hundred years old, and also considerable ancient furniture
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There were some porslin[sic porcelain] plates there used by Oliver Cromwell, and a great many other interesting relics and curiosities. After supper we went up to the pavilion, a large building, and heard an excellent concert by a stringed instrument band, but came away long before it was over. We were so tired.
