Buxton Crescent model being used to entice visitors from Manchester

The history and heritage of Buxton is now sitting proudly on display at Manchester Piccadilly showing off a model of The Crescent in all its glory surrounded by vintage posters in a bid to promote it to visitors.
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The pioneering marketing idea was the inspiration of Friends of Buxton Station, FoBS, Chairman, Dave Carlisle who heard about the model possibly becoming available when the new Buxton Crescent Visitor Experience exhibition was being put together.

He loved the idea of people taking the train ride south from Manchester to enjoy the town’s facilities, the renovated spa hotel and the Buxton Crescent Visitor Experience.

Dave said: “We love our home town of Buxton and have come up with lots of different ways to help promote it to others, particularly to rail users.

The Kenneth Steel inspired “bee-line to Buxton” travel poster and The Crescent hotel and spa buildings model on the main concourse at Manchester Piccadilly Station flanked by (from left) Matthew Jump, Piccadilly’s Deputy Station Manager, Margaret Edge, Piccadilly’s Station Control Manager and Sue Mellor, Secretary, Friends of Buxton Station.The Kenneth Steel inspired “bee-line to Buxton” travel poster and The Crescent hotel and spa buildings model on the main concourse at Manchester Piccadilly Station flanked by (from left) Matthew Jump, Piccadilly’s Deputy Station Manager, Margaret Edge, Piccadilly’s Station Control Manager and Sue Mellor, Secretary, Friends of Buxton Station.
The Kenneth Steel inspired “bee-line to Buxton” travel poster and The Crescent hotel and spa buildings model on the main concourse at Manchester Piccadilly Station flanked by (from left) Matthew Jump, Piccadilly’s Deputy Station Manager, Margaret Edge, Piccadilly’s Station Control Manager and Sue Mellor, Secretary, Friends of Buxton Station.

“Perhaps one of our most innovative promotional ideas has come with use of this model of The Crescent, Buxton’s undisputed architectural jewel. Never has it been more important to support the town as it is now, since many local small independent traders struggle to recover from the damage done by covid-19 controls.”

The wonderfully engineered model of The Crescent advertises the town’s best assets to those passing through the UK’s third busiest railway station which earlier in the month welcomed 30,000 passengers through the station doors in just one day.

Measuring in at an impressive 1.5m by 1.0m, the 1:150 scale model was offered by the Friends of Buxton Station (FoBS), working in partnership with the Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust (BCHT), which previously owned it.

FoBS is a multi-award winning voluntary community group - they have attracted much praise from within the Community Rail movement for their innovative approach and have been recognised with National Community Rail Awards in 2016, 2018 and 2020.

Their volunteering is focused upon Buxton Station and its immediate environment, but also encompasses wider community work, such as promoting Buxton as a visitor destination and supporting its local small independent traders by similarly enhancing their profile to visitors.

BCHT’s Louise Cross said: “The model was originally commissioned by the Trevor Osborne Property Group and CP Holdings Ltd, developers for the project to renovate The Crescent into the spa and hotel complex, with shops and a visitor centre.

"The developers donated it to the Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust, who in partnership with the Friends of Buxton Station, offered it to Piccadilly Station to highlight the rich

heritage of Buxton.”

Alongside the model, there is a simple interpretation panel, explaining a little about its history there are also a couple of vintage posters by artist Kenneth Steel in the 1950s encouraging people to ‘make a beeline for Buxton’ which FoBS had to pay for and obtain a Licence from the National Archive held by the Science Museum to use Kenneth’s work.

The volunteer group say it is very grateful to their collaborating partners, without whom this project would not have been possible.

Dave added: “We managed to do this thanks to the partnership with BCHT and Karen Hornby, Network Rail’s Head of Performance and Customer Relationship on the North West Route and Margaret Edge, Piccadilly’s Station Control Manager.”

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