Devonshire Royal Hospital Devonshire Royal Hospital The Devonshire Royal Hospital building (now popularly known as the Devonshire Dome) is a Grade II* listed 18th-century former stable block in Buxton, Derbyshire. It was built by John Carr of York and extended by architect Robert Rippon Duke, who added what was then the world's largest unsupported dome, with a diameter of . It is now the site of the Devonshire campus of the University of Derby. Built between 1780 and 1789, the original building was designed by John Carr of York for William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire. Octagonal in shape, it housed up to
William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1838, a position in which he served for twenty years until his death. It was this interest which led him to establish the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew as a national botanic garden. The world's most commercially exploited banana, the Cavendish, was named in his honour. He had acquired an early specimen, which he raised in his glasshouse, and this plant is the progenitor of almost all the worldwide varieties of Cavendish banana. Devonshire was also patron of The Derby Town and County Museum and Natural History Society. In that position, he was