Shown here is Matlock Bath's South Parade at the very beginning of the Edwardian era. The buildings on the left are little changed and the large oval sign for Hodgkinson's Hotel is almost right in the middle!

On the far right are buildings that disappeared when the road was widened - the shop called Royal Museum and the Great Petrifying Well. When describing the Buxton family of Matlock Bath^[1] my late father wrote that "the first recollection I had of them was when they were living at what they styled as "The Royal Museum". It was a novelty jewellery and ornament vending shop with the emphasis on Blue John, petrified objects and the like. ... The original "Royal Museum was, of course, on the other side of the road. ... When the Buxton family vacated the Spa shop they went to live in a house they had built above Temple Walk^[2]".

The Great Petrifying Well was one of several Petrifying Wells that had existed in Matlock Bath over the years. Shelves displaying petrified objects are clearly visible on the external wall^[3]. "Few visitors care to journey homewards without a nest, and egg, a stick, or some other object coated in stone, to remind them when the holiday is over of the dales and heights of lovely Matlock^[4]". The larger of the two signs by the doorway tells us that this was "The Largest & Principal Petrifying Well in Matlock".

Whilst the G. W. Wilson & Co. photograph from Ward Lock's 1903 guide, below, is less clear, it shows slightly more of the front of the Well building.