Good Spa Guide - The Best Spas in Britain

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The four-hour ritual starts with an in-depth chat with your therapist, rattling through your bugbears and working out your dosha to diagnose whether you need to de-stress, age gracefully, sleep better or get more energy. What the judges said: “Rudding Park is a regency country house hotel close to the spa town of Harrogate. The spa is one of the largest around, with two swimming pools, stylish relaxation areas, inviting thermal facilities, a spa restaurant, a hair salon and 41 treatment rooms where Elemis and Voya face and body treatments are performed by highly-skilled therapists. Helen Aylward Smith, who set up Combe Grove as a business within a charitable trust, has a grand, game-changing vision, and this feels like just the start.

After an 18-month renovation, she has created The Dreaming: healing retreats rooted in the restorative power of connection with the land. Natural finishes are at the root of the design, with the softness of timber predominating, as befits the rural context, but there’s enough smart contemporary sharpness to please the original Cotswolds set. Our expert team has contributed to high-circulation publications including The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian, and received coverage in CN Traveller, Stylist and Citywealth. What the judges said: “The Lanesborough is a vast white, neo-classical style mansion in the heart of one of London’s most exclusive areas, on the edge of Hyde Park.As well as the fleet of personal trainers, there’s outdoor fitness that includes tyre-flipping, Olympic lifting, rope-climbing and padel tennis under the tutelage of Jack Hazlewood of Padel Shift (who has a devilish serve and the patience of a saint). Big congratulation to the other four spas in the top five: – Lucknam Park, Wiltshire; Pennyhill Park, Surrey; The Vineyard, Berkshire and Dormy House Hotel and Spa, Worcestershire. The goal is for 80 per cent of produce used at The Dreaming to be grown onsite, with a hydromill and water-source heat pump already generating 60 to 70 per cent of the retreat’s energy. The spas new product range, in partnership with Pelegrims, uses grape leaf extract from the 19,500 vines in spa’s very own vineyard.

With close to 1,000 acres of woodland, gardens and orchards – plus an onsite cyder press, interactive garden museum and reconstructed Roman villa – it’s obvious that this is a notch above your average country-house hotel. It’s not a spa, nor a retreat, but bills itself as a Centre for Health and Wellbeing, giving guests the tools and encouragement to make seismic changes. You're given a mental cleanse by being encouraged to let go of planning and scheduling, and activities include meditation to work on clearing the mind and cultivating a cheerier outlook on life.

And the treatments deliver exactly what is needed: Germaine de Capuccini facials, vitamin C wraps, wildly invigorating exfoliations and the sedating Hebridean Sound treatment which includes a mass of powerful scalp work to slow down a racing mind. This is deeply well thought-out, brilliantly light-touch wellness – with a generous smattering of understated countryside glamour to match. trillion and growing by between 5% and 10% each year it represents an opportunity both for consumers and wellness brands. What the judges said: “The Spa at Breedon Priory is a contemporary, no-expense-spared glass-fronted spa sunk into the landscape in peaceful Derbyshire. Rooms are cosy, with thick duvets on the beds, traditional stone fireplaces and fresh mint on hand for late-night tea and movie nights, and there’s a large film library to borrow a DVD from.