Accessibility
If you are concerned about any accessibility issues surrounding your visit, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do our best to adapt to your needs. Our accessibility information tries to answer potential questions, however, we also know that nothing beats having some personal contact and reassurance.
Our aim is to provide everybody with the best possible way of experiencing the history and heritage of our beautiful town.
Before You Arrive: Planning Your Visit
Reduced Mobility
Small adjustments can be made to our walking tours if you have reduced mobility, please make a note of them when booking online or contact us if you have any concerns. There is information about our routes and the places we visit below.
Hearing Impairment
Our walking tour guides have microphones with portable speakers. Please note, much of our walking tours take place alongside busy pavements and roads.
We are not currently able to offer BSL-interpreted tours, but we’re looking into it! If these would be of interest, please contact us.
If a spoken word tour is not suitable for you, we have a self-guided family treasure hunt trail which explores the lower town using a printed (or digital) guidebook. Find out more here.
Visual Impairment
If you or a member of your group has a visual impairment, please inform our team and we will make sure to be extra descriptive with our stories!
We can also highlight things to touch on our walking tours.
Assistance Dogs
Dogs are welcome on all of our tours, however, only registered assistance dogs are allowed into some of the buildings we visit.
Neurodiversity
We are very happy to offer quieter or ‘relaxed’ tours for those with sensory issues. We’re in the process of developing sensory stories for our lower town walking tour. There are lots of things to touch, see, hear and smell on our tours, other than our guides!
When You Arrive in Buxton
Parking
There is limited disabled parking spaces at either end of the Pavilion Gardens promenade, either in the Pavilion Garden Car Park off Burlington Road (8 bays) or the on-street parking available on Water Street. It is also possible to off load adjacent to the Buxton Opera House.
Accessible Toilets
There are several disabled toilets within the Pavilion Gardens building including a Changing Places toilet. Accessible toilets are also available at the car park and lake kiosk via use of a Radar key.
During our tours, accessible facilities are available at the Pavilion Gardens, the Old Hall Hotel and the Devonshire Dome.
Booking Office
Our booking office is accessed off the Pavilion Gardens promenade, a flat walk from either end. There are automatic doors upon entry and no steps. Our office is straight ahead of the entrance. If arriving from St John’s Road, there are ~20 shallow steps down to the main level and a lift for wheelchair access.
On Our Tours
Guided Commentary
Our walking tour guides use microphones and portable speakers, particularly for larger groups, or if requested.
Not all our character guides use microphones but can do upon request.
Walking Routes
Our lower town tours – the History & Heritage walking tour, our character-guided heritage experiences and many of our themed tours – are a gentle amble around a small area with many places to perch. They mostly follow town pavements with dropped kerbs at road crossings. Some venture up onto The Slopes, the terraced, grassy area opposite The Crescent, but routes can be amended to avoid this. We also visit the Devonshire Dome on many of our tours. The route to it is up a small hill, but it’s worth the walk (or push)!
Our All Ale & Higher Buxton walking tour heads up The Slopes and the adjacent and steep Hall Bank, to reach Higher Buxton. To avoid this, tours can be started in Higher Buxton.
Our Natural History Explorer Tour is not wheelchair accessible and not for those with reduced mobility as it is a 4 hour walk which heads across often-muddy fields, up hills, off paths up steep slopes, along gravel tracks and down into slippy river banks. However, an accessible version of the tour is available around the Pavilion Gardens.
Venues
Most of our tours stop to take in some of the town’s iconic venues. See accessibility details for each venue below. Please note, these out of our control.
Our lower town History & Heritage walking tour visits a number of venues including the Cavendish Arcade, Clowes chemists, Devonshire Dome and Buxton Opera House.
Our All Ale & Higher Buxton walking tour visits Scrivener’s Bookshop, St Anne’s Church and the Cheshire Cheese.
The A Taste of Buxton tour visits many venues which are subject to change. Please contact us to discuss your accessibility needs when enquiring about this tour.
Our character-guided tours visit the Devonshire Dome, Pavilion Gardens and the Old Hall Hotel.
Our Dr Robertson heritage experience takes place at Ashleigh, a Victorian home.
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Ashleigh has a steep driveway without handrails with 2 steps with a rail up to the door and then ~4 steps inside the property entrance.
The Buxton Opera House foyer is accessed via four steps.
The Cavendish Arcade has flat and inclined access with no steps inside. Doors are opened manually. Chairs, tables and products line the corridors but there is space for a wheelchair and prams.
The Cheshire Cheese has flat access with one step inside down to the toilets. Seating avoiding steps can be arranged.
Clowes chemist is accessed via one or two shallow steps (on an incline).
The Devonshire Dome has ramp access and is on the flat once inside. Chairs are available inside. Access to the upper floor on our character tours, is possible using a lift.
The Old Hall Hotel has flat access via a revolving door which can be opened for wheelchair users. Access to the upper floor is possible via a lift although it is only 67cm wide. For our Mary Queen of Scots heritage experience, guests are seated for most of the performance.
The Pavilion Gardens complex is on the flat between the Winter Gardens conservatory (where there is a shallow incline) through to the Octagon Hall. There are steps and a lift up to the upper level (Pavilion Arts Centre) with flat access to St John’s Road. Paths in the gardens are all metalled and predominately flat with slight inclines in places.
St Anne’s Church is accessed via a flagged pathway and has one small step down into the porch. There are seats available inside (pews). The flagged pathway continues around the back to the graveyard. The flagstones can be very slippy when wet.
Scrivener’s Bookshop has flat access to the ground floor but no wheelchair access to other floors. There is also restricted space between the many shelves of books.