The coronavirus pandemic has caused disruption for many of us looking forward to relaxing holidays this year, and if you’re dreaming of outdoor infinity pools, muscle-melting massages and a good old natter in your robes, the idea of a spa break will be more tantalising than ever right now. The following round-up should offer some inspiration on where to go for that much-needed pampering once we’re all on the other side of this.
It wasn’t long ago that a spa meant a couple of pokey treatment rooms doing overpriced, mediocre massages and facials. The UK once lagged way behind the likes of Austria, Germany, Italy and Hungary – countries where spa-going is part of the culture, and a steam, sauna and cold dip (often in the nude, men and women alike) is the natural thing to do before a pre-dinner G&T. But as our insatiable interest in wellness, fitness and, increasingly, mindfulness continues to grow, so has the offering in spa hotels across the UK. Below I have listed some personal favourites, from year-round rooftop spas in Yorkshire to the thermal spa waters of Bath.
Thermal waters are the draw at The Gainsborough: its Spa Village has thermal pools, powerful massage jets, ice alcoves and thermal fountains. Other treatments include ‘freedom’ – controlled submerging with a therapist, which is liberating both mentally and physically – ginger exfoliation and magnesium wraps (the mineral antidote for anxiety). Massages draw on Malaysia’s rich healing heritage. You can even access thermal waters from your bathroom, a UK first.
Calcot & Spa
Tetbury, Cotswolds, England
The sprawling and spacious spa complements this extensive country house retreat with its relaxing treatment rooms, heated outdoor hot tub and indoor slate-lined pool (with separate swimming times for children) as well as large outdoor pool. Treatments include massages, facials, men’s grooming, manicures and pedicures and include Aromatherapy Associates, CACI and Skin Regimen – a new scientific, holistic approach to halting the skin’s ageing process.
You will make full use of the guest binoculars from an Estuary View room in this sleek, family-friendly spa hotel. The river is startlingly close and mesmerisingly gorgeous, with plenty of boat and wildlife activity plus nearby coves for bucket-and-spade outings. The pool has a ‘children’s hours’ policy; outside these times, it’s a fragrant haven of calm. Treats include the blissful lava shell massage – hot shells that iron out tension – and ESPA facials (The Lift and Firm truly does!). With cocktails, superb seafood and a mini-cinema, everyone is happy.
Barnsley House
Cirencester, Cotswolds, England
You walk across the hotel’s exquisite garden to reach the spa, strikingly set in a dell beside a cow-grazed pasture. It exudes rustic chic, with log tables in the relaxation room and corridors suffused with heady aromas from bunches of herbs strung over beams. Treatments are mainly based on Aromatherapy Associates products, with state-of-the-art CACI (Computer Aided Cosmetology Instrument) facials also available. Facilities include a sauna, a steam room and a outdoor hydrotherapy pool.
This subterranean spa and holistic wellbeing centre taps into the four elements: earth (a tiny lounge with a menu designed with a nutritionist); water (with a lap pool, steam room, sauna and whirlpool tub); fire (hi-tech gym full of sparky members); and air (classes such as yoga). Creamy sandstone and glowing Moroccan floor lanterns lead to a hammam for purifying scrubs and massages, Maghreb-style. A steamy ritual in a white marble room helps blood circulation, revives skin and releases tension using warm oil massage, aromatic soaps and exfoliation.
Spread over four floors, this place is unashamedly cool: black Italian marble, stained oak panels, heated marble loungers and private sleep pods. With style comes substance: the spa is home to top practitioners in naturopathy, osteopathy, physiotherapy and acupuncture. More pampering? Go for an ESPA Pure Indulgence Body Ritual – two hours of exfoliation, a wrap and a body and scalp massage. Chill out in the vast thermal suite with hydrotherapy and lap pools, sauna and steam room.
Set beside a wooded private lake, five swanky private spa suites offer cosseting boutique hotel luxury combined with stress-busting seclusion. In this perfect couples’ hideaway, each cedar-clad cabin is 6ft above ground for show-stopping views across the Lake District fells. There are log fires, state-of-the-art music systems and sitting rooms that convert into treatment rooms for massage à deux. Your personal en-suite spa also boasts a steam room, sauna and hot tub.
Whatley Manor
Malmesbury, Cotswolds, England
For a super-spoiling weekend, head to this restored 19th-century country manor with tranquil gardens, an ivy-clad entrance, wood panelling and Persian rugs. Team a facial and fizz with a fondue (Swiss style). The spa has a steam room, sauna and indoor/outdoor hydrotherapy pool with massaging jets overlooking fields. Massages feature Ila products, using ingredients wild-harvested from remote, untainted regions far and wide (Morocco, the Himalayas) but blended and bottled 50 miles away.
Set in one of the Highlands’ prettiest locations, this spa has a crack team of practitioners to nudge you back into wellness via tailored diet, fitness and lifestyle programmes. The ESPA spa features top treatments and superstar therapists: a must is the two-hour Serenity Package, blending body and facial massage with shirodhara (warm oil drizzled over the forehead to relax and still the mind).
You will find this modern, funky little spa deep below the hotel (oh-so quiet and away from it all) offering marvellous treatments, many of which are based around mineral-rich Scottish seaweed. Steam, swim or relax in a bath of fresh seaweed, flown in daily from the Hebrides. Afterwards, choose a detox body wrap or rejuvenating facial from Ila or Ishga Organic skincare, which makes its products using antioxidant-rich organic seaweed from the Isle of Lewis. There are lots of warm whirlpools and saunas and steam rooms to investigate – and there are great treatments for men, too.
Seaham Hall
Seaham, County Durham, England
This large Georgian country house has opulent bedrooms, the best with sea views. Follow the low-lit wooden passageway to the Serenity Spa, where treatments are based on natural ingredients and ancient principles from brands such as Ayurveda-inspired Sundari, brimming with essential oils, herbs and plant extracts. Alternate between the warmth of the state-of-the-art sauna, steam room and whirlpool tub and the chill of the ice fountain, plunge pools and rain-head showers – and flop atop the heated beds of the Zen Lounge overlooking the 37-acre estate.
During Galgorm’s Celtic Sauna Ritual (spa circuit) there’s a choice of things to admire – from the picturesque grounds through the sauna window, to the staff wafting oil-infused steam around the room with a towel – while participants simply sit and inhale. The outdoor thermal Spa Village is a watery wonderland (do pack your swimming gear). It has a large pool (with a polished pebble floor to massage pressure points in your feet), indoor and outdoor thermal spa pools, an ice room where you can slather shards of ice over yourself post-sauna, or soak in the log-fired hot tubs (for two to 12 people) dotted along the riverside.
In the shadow of Edinburgh Castle but far enough from the glitz of George Street, the hotel is the epitome of 19th-century railway glamour – all chintzy carpets and chandeliers – while the Guerlain spa is Parisian pampering perfected. Each treatment kicks off with a personalised ‘fragrance journey’ where guests choose their favourite Guerlain scent and then towels, foot-bath and body oil are drenched in it. Facials are sublime – the two-and-a-half-hour Orchidée Impériale Prestige Treatment is a cracking combination of gentle and firmer massage techniques and not one but three face masks.
Dormy House
Broadway, Cotswolds, England
Sprawling over several floors, the Scandinavian-chic House Spa leads directly off the reception lobby, so you are in no doubt that it’s centre stage at this ‘reinvented rustic’ country house hotel. There are gyms for workouts, classes and personal training sessions, a thermal suite, including a Cotswold lavender sauna, salt therapy room, Mud Rasul room and outdoor hot tub. Treatments are by Temple Spa and there’s a nail parlour and an infinity pool.
Lime Wood
New Forest, Hampshire, England
This sybaritic spa is encased in glass and surrounded by greenery. There are private bathrooms with deep copper baths in the changing rooms; sensuous swimming, hydrotherapy; a pioneering raw food café, Raw and Cured; a tempting shop, Curated; and a mud house, relaxation rooms and state-of-the-art gym leading to a beautiful rooftop garden – all with sylvan views. Spa treatments are by Bamford, Voya, Pai, Tri-Dosha and Aromatherapy Associates. The roof is a good spot for yoga.
Coworth Park
Ascot, Berkshire, England
The hotel’s innovative, environmentally friendly credentials are hidden behind a smoothly stylish interior and heralded by a vast and spectacular wildflower meadow. The curving, half-hidden spa has to be one of the most self-indulgent in the country, flooded with natural light and decorated with art and sculpture. It has eight treatment rooms, the Spatisserie serving light meals (and champagne, of course), a Technogym and a heated pool with underwater music.
There are eight indoor and outdoor pools to choose from – one even has soothing underwater music. There are also several hot tubs, herbal saunas and steam rooms. There are myriad natural and organic treatments designed to detox, cleanse and relax, including packages for couples. And the heated ceramic relaxation beds, shaped to the body’s contours, are almost impossible to leave.
The Scarlet
Mawgan Porth, England
In the airy, multilevel, environmentally friendly Scarlet, the feeling is one of intense relaxation. The womblike spa specialises in Ayurvedic ‘journeys’, with tented treatment rooms and pods suspended in the dark for ‘deep relaxation’ and an all-glass sea-facing roof for ‘light relaxation’. The reed-fringed, rock-strewn outdoor pool extends from the indoor one, punctuated by two bright scarlet wood-fired hot tubs perched between boulders overlooking the sea.
Combining old-school, classic elegance and impressive grandeur with a contemporary, holistic approach, Chewton Glen’s award-winning spa is said to have one of Europe’s largest hydrotherapy pools. There’s also an ozone-treated indoor pool lined with blue mosaic tiles and surrounded by Grecian columns, plus an outdoor hot tub and swimming pool. The changing rooms feature aromatherapy saunas and crystal steam rooms.
Cardiff has a few spectacular buildings and this is one of them – a silver, blue-and-white spaceship-meets-cruise ship on Cardiff Bay. It houses a slick gym, a hydrotherapy spa pool, a sauna and a corridor of water leading to swan-neck fountains. Choose from newly added Decléor anti-ageing facials, aromatherapy massage, seaweed-based marine-inspired exfoliation treatments, and slimming wraps.
The state-of-the-art spa complements the elegant Georgian mansion and its extensive surroundings; indeed, you can easily spend a whole day there, luxuriating in an indoor pool embellished by a panel of flickering fire, an array of thermal treatment rooms and tubs, and 12 treatment rooms, all surrounded by delightful gardens. The wellbeing house offers yoga, Pilates, dry flotation and aromatic thermal massages.
The contemporary spa makes a startling contrast to the Elizabethan manor: an uncompromisingly modern building with a spectacular box-like exterior and an airy and natural interior. Facilities include an indoor/outdoor pool, hot tub, walk-through rain shower, steam room, sauna, gym, relaxation area, sundeck, guest lounge and café. Six knockout bedrooms open onto a roof garden with superb views.
Helmsley is a classic market town and this spa reflects that, with welcoming tweedy fabrics and a down-to-earth approach. Guests can book specific treatments (the My Kinda Skin Facial, 60 min, £85, is great) or time slots so they can mix and match on the day to get their full spur-of-the-moment money’s worth. Afterwards, tuck into burgers and bubbly. Detox, you do not! The pool, set in a courtyard garden, is transformed every summer by pots of lavender and a pop-up restaurant.
One of Harrogate’s health-giving natural springs feeds directly into Rudding Park’s award-winning rooftop spa and garden, which impresses with myriad facilities including herb-infused saunas and steam rooms, experience showers, and relaxation areas. Swim outside in the heated hydrotherapy infinity pool or kick back in the open-air whirlpool next to the garden sauna. Treatments include kombucha facials, Rasul mud rituals, thermal detox wraps and beauty therapy. On warmer days, the spa garden is a lovely spot for meditation.
The seven-day health programme at this classic country house – a diet of healthy fats, moderate protein and gentle fibre, along with fermented food and probiotics – focuses on restoring good gut function by addressing liver health, gut bacteria, sleep and stress management. This benefits women during peri- and menopause as good gut bacteria eliminate excess hormones, especially oestrogen – the cause of hot flushes, night sweats, abdominal fat, disrupted sleep, breast tenderness and anxiety. Book a cosy Manor House room in the old original part of the building.
