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'Healthy
Living" Accelerates Britain's Spa Revival
Couples find many new romantic spas--and many historical favorites--across
Britain
by Annabelle Thorpe
Whether it is massages or manicures, facials or floats, seaweed wraps
or salt body scrubs – suddenly the British are fluent in the language
of spa, a pastime that once seemed to belong only to middle-Europeans,
who went twice yearly to take the waters, cleanse their systems and try
to restore a little of the balance that everyday life took away.
The British didn’t seem to have much time for spas: spa towns, such
as Leamington and Harrogate, no longer made any use of their natural waters
and minerals, and once-beautiful bathing houses fell into disrepair. However,
over the last ten years, an increased interest in healthy living has seen
a spa revival in the UK. New state-of-the-art facilities are being built
in the spa towns, new destination spas are springing up across the country
and many four and five-star hotels are building their own gleaming new
spa, with treatment rooms, thermal sequencing and indulgent therapies.
Healthy Living
There have always been what we used to call ‘health farms’ in
Britain; Champneys first opened in 1925, a glamorous bolt-hole for the
rich and famous to maintain their health and beauty. But as healthy living
has become an increasing preoccupation, so the UK has created its own
definition of spa: neither the health-focused centres that you find in
central Europe, nor the new-age temples that exist in Indian Ocean resorts,
but something in-between. A British spa is a heady mix of pampering and
health-boosting treatments, soothing spaces we can retreat to for an hour,
a day or a week, to de-stress or detox and generally be spoiled.
UK spas specialise in welcoming you in from a stressful world, cosseting
and spoiling you for a few days, before returning you to that same world
feeling relaxed and gorgeous. Health farms have become destination spas,
where every aspect of mind and body is catered for; resorts such as Champneys
begin each visit with a consultation to create an individualised treatment
programme to turn out a newer, fitter you.
Pampering Spas
 But
what Britain really excels at is the more frivolous, indulgent side of
the whole spa experience. Hotels such as Babington House, Cowley Manor
and Seaham Hall have state-of-the-art spas, but they also have indulgent
menus, great wine lists and a strong emphasis on guests lying around doing
absolutely nothing. Although these spas offer the highest standard of
care, they do their best not to take everything too seriously. We like
to play around a little with our spa treatments – at Cowley Manor
the selection of body waxings comes under the Cockney heading ‘Cor
Blimey’, while at Babington’s Cowshed spa, all the treatment
names are cow-themed.
This more informal attitude makes a few days in a UK spa quite different
from its European neighbours; for Britons, spa is about having fun and
feeling good, not reaching goal weights or having a daily medical check-up.
"In Roman times, spas used to be social places, where people came
to meet friends, catch up and have a giggle," says Mike Goodman,
of Spascape, a spa design consultancy who worked on Pennyhill Park and
Whatley Manor. "They tend to be thought of as very serious places
nowadays, but we’re trying to change all that."
The way to get the best from a spa in the UK is to combine it with a great
location, and a fabulous hotel. Spa treatments are even more pleasurable
if you have tired feet to soothe or aching limbs to massage. Combine the
sights and sounds of London with some blissful treatments at the Mandarin
Oriental in Knightsbridge; or explore the historic delights of Edinburgh
before relaxing into a soothing float or seaweed wrap at the glorious
OneSpa at the Edinburgh Sheraton [photo above].
Walk the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia by all means, but make time for
a blissful aromatherapy massage at Bodysgallen Hall. Hit the high seas
on a kitesurf on England’s Sussex coast but book a restorative facial
at Bailiffscourt Hotel afterwards.
Spa Treatments
And the choice of treatments
is endless. UK spas select the best treatments from around the world and
offer them up with an English spin; Thai massage at Seaham Hall in Northumberland,
Indian Shirodhara at the Grove in Watford, just outside London, or an
Aboriginal mud-massage at Pennyhill Park in Surrey. Scented showers and
ice caves, rasul mud chambers and starlit flotation tanks, whether you
want to feel refreshed, relaxed or even reborn, there’s a treatment
for every need, want and desire.
Best of all, you can opt in and out of the spa experience. You might have
a day full of treatments, and then opt for a diet-busting supper of champagne
and sausage and mashed potato, or finish a meal with a glass or two or
port and a flirtation with the cheeseboard. No-one will raise an eyebrow
if you indulge in a cream tea or treat yourself to a proper English breakfast.
Britons believe "a little of what you fancy does you good".
Whether that’s a five-mile-walk, a facial, or a good old-fashioned
full English breakfast with all the trimmings, it is entirely up to you.
For more details on the ways to pamper yourself – including destination
spas, luxury resorts, day spas, health farms and historic spa towns –
see VisitBritain’s new-look website www.visitbritain.com
and click on ‘good living’.
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