Ten of the Best Hotels in the UK for a Luxury Spa Break
If you’re looking for a hotel with a spa that oozes luxury and promises relaxation, from holistic hideaways to results-driven wellness centres, here is our pick of the best…
The UK now boasts some seriously stylish spa hotels, able to compete with the most luxurious retreats in the world, where rest and relaxation are the order of the day. Britain has no shortage of country-house hotels with roaring fires for colder days and nature’s finest right on the doorstep when the sun shines. Now many of these high-end hotels are also home to seriously special spas, too. In fact, UK spa hotels offer everything you can get abroad —without the jet lag.
The top-of-their-game hotel spas listed here don’t just nod to wellbeing, they offer a nourishing, grounded wellness proposition. Next-level treatments and deeply knowledgeable therapists are complemented by standout design and proven complementary therapies from cold water immersions and forest bathing.
If you’re looking to reboot, here is The Luxury Spa Edit’s selection of tranquil spa sanctuaries around the UK for your next luxury break. Featuring the traditional, the tech-driven and everything in-between, there’s a hotel spa in our edit to tick all boxes.
Chewton Glen, Hampshire
If you’re craving quintessential English charm, Chewton Glen – an 18th-century country house hotel – has it in spades. Located in the New Forest, Chewton Glen is a five-star Relais & Châteaux hotel and spa, set in 130 acres of Hampshire countryside.
The Spa at Chewton Glen is dedicated to holistic lifestyle programmes and indulgent treatments. Its crowning glory is the pool hall with a 17-metre swimming pool, 13 jet station hydrotherapy pool, steam room, outdoor hot tub and drench showers. Each changing room also has a 10-seater sauna and amethyst crystal steam room. It’s water-based bliss.
The spa has 12 treatment rooms with experiences from OSKIA, Natura Bisse and CBD brand OTO. Rituals include Sleep Soundly, [Meno]Pause and Restore. The spa also offers treatments for junior guests under 17. Always at the forefront of complementary wellness, therapies at Chewton Glen include Singing Bowl Sound Healing and a bespoke OTO Mushroom Oil Kinoko Ki treatment.
If you’re looking for something really special, the highlight is Tree Top Tranquillity, a 90-minute full body ritual in one of Chewton Glen’s Treehouses, suspended 35ft in the air overlooking the Forest.
The Grove, Hertfordshire
An exquisite luxury hotel recognised by the Forbes Travel Guide, the Grove oozes five-star elegance and high-end opulence. Set in 300 acres of Hertfordshire countryside, with gardens featuring ever-changing art installations, it’s just 18 miles from London.
The Sequoia Spa is famous for its statement, inky black mosaic-tiled swimming pool, and is packed with calming wellness offers. A subterranean haven, facilities include a large hot tub, vitality pool, sauna and steam room, plus a women’s-only heaven shower and wellness pool.
The inclusive treatment menu is in partnership leading British spa brand Bamford and Spanish brand Natura Bissé. Menu options include the B Silent Ritual and the to die for Wellness Facial, as well as the Sequoia Signature Massage, which uses Western and Eastern massage techniques including shiatsu and ancient Thai healing. If you book a treatment, you’ll also get access to the hotel’s Tranquillity room, designed by StudioJill to leave you feeling completely refreshed and renewed.
Heckfield Place, Hampshire
The Bothy by Wildsmith is in Heckfield Place, a restored Georgian family home amidst 400 acres in Hampshire, just over an hour from London. It’s a place where time slows down. A place to be in the present, to reconnect and realign, and feel less weighed down by the world.
The Bothy offers something truly unique, transporting guests to a simpler time and helping you reconnect to nature’s rhythm. As well as a comprehensive treatment menu using products from Wildsmith Skin, a brand founded on the estate, there are also classes from wellness experts Bodyism and visiting practitioners, including yoga, Pilates and meditation.
Holistic experiences include massages, facials, body scrubs and wraps. There is also a ‘movement menu’ offering everything from cold water immersion to forest bathing. The signature Woodland Movement, set in the wild meadows and ancient woodland, will lengthen, strengthen and tone, leaving you feeling brand new.
Facilities include a heated indoor pool, a steam room and a sauna, as well an outdoor hot tub. If you’re hankering for a holistic wellness experience, and a place to truly switch off, the Bothy is for you.
Grantley Hall, Yorkshire
A distinguished 17th century, grade II listed country house hotel, Grantley Hall is home to the purpose-built and equally celebrated Three Graces Spa. Set in 38 acres of grounds and woodland on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, Three Graces Spa has an 18-metre indoor swimming pool, an indoor to outdoor hydrotherapy pool and thermal experiences including a sauna, steam room and snow room. The new Nordic Spa Garden features two ice baths, an outdoor sauna and a tranquil relaxation area. Every visit starts with a deep breath and a meaningful pause to help you connect with the here and now.
Offering wellness with some serious welly behind it, in the executive wellness centre you’ll find state-of-the-art diagnostic facilities, with a philosophy based on each guest achieving a state of equilibrium unique to them. The centre offers a mind-boggling array of specialist treatments including an underwater treadmill, a cryotherapy chamber and altitude training. Bespoke face and body treatments are provided by ila, Natura Bisse and Jennifer Young.
In addition to the spa, Grantley Hall’s ELITE luxury gym offers strength and conditioning equipment alongside Tanita and Styku body scanners and Electro Muscular Stimulation (EMS) suits for a full-body workout like no other.
Coworth Park, Berkshire
Just 45 minutes from London, on the borders of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, Coworth Park is an elegantly designed country house in 240 acres of exceptional grounds. Part of the Dorchester Collection, Coworth Park’s partially submerged luxury eco-spa is light, bright and modern, with striking glass walls ensuring it’s flooded with light all year round.
Facilities, which are spread across two floors, include a pool with underwater music lined with sculptural amethyst crystals, an aromatic steam room, experience shower and terrace with sun loungers and breathtaking views.
In the eight treatment rooms you can indulge in a plethora of pampering, cutting-edge treatments from high-end brands including ishga, Hydrafacial, Valmont – the essence of Swiss beauty – and prestigious Spanish brand Germaine de Capuccini. The spa also offers deeply nourishing Hand on Heart Cancer Touch treatments from Made for Life Organics.
Fairmont Windsor Park, Berkshire
A gem on the edge of Windsor Great Park, close to London, the five-star Fairmont Windsor Park blurs history with contemporary elegance within 40 acres of grounds and gardens. The colossal Fairmont Spa & Wellness is a destination in its own right, with 18 treatment rooms, state-of-the-art facilities, health assessments aplenty and holistic therapies plus wellbeing treatments.
Facilities? Where do we start! There’s a 20-metre indoor pool, four wellness rooms, a traditional Hammam and a courtyard hydrotherapy vitality pool, plus a thermal suite with a sauna, steam room, cryotherapy chamber, experience shower, heated tepidarium bench and Japanese foot bath. And there’s more. A salt room offers views over the courtyard vitality pool, and you can relax in both light and deep relaxation rooms. There’s also a private spa suite with its own rasul and hot tub.
Fairmont Spa & Wellness offers health assessments with a lifestyle review and 4D scanning. Specialised health treatments include physiotherapy, osteopathy, acupuncture, nutritional therapy and vitamin infusions. As you would expect there is also a huge array of massages and facials. You can opt for a holistic wellbeing treatment and or science-backed spa clinic innovation, safe in the knowledge that every experience is designed to make a meaningful impact, so you leave feeling rejuvenated.
Gleneagles, Perthshire, Scotland
It may be better known for its Championship golf course, but Gleneagles – a country hotel in the glorious glens of Perthshire, Scotland – also has an extensive spa and health club.
The spa has three pools (indoor and outdoor), a thermal suite including crystal steam room, arctic mist shower and hot sauna cabin, relaxation rooms plus a garden courtyard with glass roof and open fire. It’s set up for every health requirement imaginable thanks to a specialist team of osteopaths, physiotherapists, acupuncturists and more, all led by a skilled naturopathic practitioner.
The spa offers a collection of tailored Tata Harper, Dr Barbara Sturm facials and bespoke Glen Spa treatments. The Long Exhale is Gleneagles Signature treatment using warm Jade Wavestones and including incredible full body stretches delivered with Flax Seed, Borage and Sea buckthorn oils infused with Neroli, Rose Otto and Sandalwood balm your being with calm. It completes with a Jade Comb Facial Massage and Scalp Massage leaving you radiant with life-force.
Sitting separately from the spa, Gleneagles glamorous Bob & Cloche beauty lodge is dedicate to pampering; think hair, nails, pedicures and beauty from OSKIA and Elim.
Lime Wood, Hampshire
Herb House Spa at Lime Wood is a little bit different and a little bit special. On the edge of the New Forest, just outside Lyndhurst, the Lime Wood luxury boutique hotel is an enchanting Regency house with scattered lodges and an Angela Hartnett restaurant.
The Herb House a charmingly English spa, set in a walled garden, that is dedicated to natural wellbeing and inspired by its forest surroundings – it’s the perfect chilling retreat. The spa has an indoor ozone treated pool, a large hydro-pool with forest views, an aroma-steam room, a Mud House using 100 percent organic mud and a sauna with woodland views. The menu of holistic treatments on offer are from Bamford, VOYA, expert facialist Sarah Chapman and Ground Wellbeing – all boutique British product houses.
There is something soul-soothingly simple and refreshing about the Herb House, and if you’re looking for a standout treat, try the Ayurvedic treatments from therapist and Reiki healer, Sheena Chandran.
Cliveden House, Berkshire
Dating back to 1666, Cliveden House was bought by the Waldorf-Astor family in the 1800s, when it gained notoriety as a party house for the likes of Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin and most famously, John Profumo, who met Christine Keeler at Cliveden in 1961. The Grade I stately home is set in 376 acres of National Trust grounds and boasts a spa that’s seriously special.
Hidden behind the garden walls, the Spa at Cliveden is primed for wellbeing and relaxation. Facilities include an indoor pool, an infrared sauna and an infused steam room. There are outdoor hot tubs and of course the famous ‘Profumo’ outdoor swimming pool – the last remaining listed outdoor pool in England. If movement is on your list of to-dos, there’s a purpose-built fitness studio with a timetable of classes from Pilates and yoga to Tai Chi.
As well as Cliveden body treatments using the hotel’s bespoke Anna Maria and Nancy, inspired by two ladies synonymous with the history of the house, treatments use OSKIA’s nutritional skincare, with facials to suit all skin types. The immersive rituals really are something else, in particular the overnight Sleep Experience. The spa also uses award-winning scalp and hair health brand, Monpure London.
Lucknam Park, Bath
Lucknam Park is a spectacular country house hotel, one of the most prestigious in the UK. Even arriving along the mile-long lime and beech-lined driveway will make you feel like an extra in Bridgerton. Just outside Bath, the hotel is set in 500 acres of grounds and the spa is legendary.
Located within the hotel’s walled gardens, spa facilities include a 20m indoor/outdoor hydrotherapy pool with arboretum views, a relaxation area and five thermal cabins. Treatments are in partnership with Natural Spa Factory, 111Skin and Hydrafacial, all known for their results driven brilliance. There is also a selection of new mind body rituals from Kloris and Ashmira Botanica to enhance restoration and rejuvenation. The Sonic Energy Treatment is especially blissful – a full body, energy infused Chinese clay massage with YIN essential oils and warm sound bowls.
To ensure complete relaxation, the Lucknam Park Spa provides the highest standards of care possible. Watch the sunset from a soothing outdoor hydrotherapy pool, unwind in a selection of thermal rooms or reinvigorate yourself in before treating yourself to the attention of one of the highly-trained therapists, who deliver a full range of personalised face, body and soul-reviving treatments.
The Studio by Lucknam Park is a purpose-built space for yoga and Pilates classes.