The Devonshire Dome crowns the Devonshire Royal Hospital, a grand complex set on the hill above the town centre. The dome itself — 44 metres in diameter, the largest unsupported dome in Britain — was built in 1881 to cover the hospital's exercise court, transforming an enormous Georgian stable block into one of the most architecturally ambitious spaces in northern England.
The building is now part of the University of Derby's Buxton campus. The dome interior can be visited; it houses a training restaurant and the Devonshire Spa. The view of the dome from the outside, framed by the Georgian terraces below, gives a good sense of the scale of Victorian ambition that shaped this small spa town.