Bath is a city quite literally built on spa-ing. From the first time a Celt wallowed in a hot spring and thought ‘ahh, that’s the stuff’, to the Romans building bathing temples to the goddess Minerva and the Georgians taking the waters, most passing through have left feeling restored.
These days, like a masseur working out knots, there are many sweet spots to hit: city-centre spa hotels with inner sanctums, mineral-enriched waters, thermal circuits and retreats tucked into leafy fringes, plus alternative therapies for a more mindful reset. From rooftop pools to woodland saunas, these are best wellness experiences in Bath.
Best for mineral riches
It took 10,000 years for the waters at Thermae Bath Spa to accrue the 42 minerals that make them so luxurious (don’t drink them, though; if the fountain is working at The Pump Room you can try the waters there). However, you experience them in a rare modern building, allowed due to the use of classical geometry and local materials. It’s the UK’s only natural thermal spa, and — since bathing is no longer allowed in the Roman baths — a way to experience those very same waters that, according to local legend, helped the city’s founder Prince Bladud become king after a dip cured his pig’s skin condition, then his own affliction.
Had the top floor been crafted from limestone rather than glazed, you wouldn’t be able to gaze round at the fairy-tale cityscape — encompassing the Abbey’s spires and Somerset hills — as you sit on the rooftop pool’s bubbling underwater benches or hog its shoulder-pummelling jets.
More of its modern healing methods include a whole floor with a thermal circuit. This encompasses hot-cold showers, eucalyptus- and jasmine-scented steam chambers (one where a mask of Minerva emerges oracle-like from fragrant clouds), a sauna, ice chamber and relaxation room lit like the cosmos. In the basement pool, a gentle current turns the waters into a very lazy river.
The treatment to book: The Roman Trilogy (£165 for 85 minutes) — not an epic poem, but a heady sequence of a lime and ginger body scrub, almond- and camellia-oil massage and a rose-scented facial.
Follow with: finishing touches at La Déesse Beauty Loft; a vegan manicure with Zoya nail polish or a mandarin- and lemon-scented vegan wax for gentle de-fuzzing. Show off the end result at the Roman Baths’ Summer Lates events; you can’t dive in, but you can drink cocktails, dance to a poolside DJ set and take atmospheric torchlit tours (from 20 July to 31 August, until 10pm each night).
Best for couples
No.15 by Guesthouse
Maybe, like the eligible heroines of former resident Jane Austen, you’re in Bath to search for a suitor. Or, if you’ve brought one you wooed earlier, there are many spas that cater to couples in achingly romantic ways. Take the Cross Bath, part of the Thermae complex — a separate folly built in the 1780s and bedecked with columns, stone urns and dainty trees (plus a modern steel fountain by artist William Pye), which you can hire for private use (from £800 for 90 minutes on weekdays, plus champagne and snacks). It’s a recognised sacred site, having been built on a Celtic temple to the goddess Sul, so keep the seduction sedate, please.
No.15 by Guesthouse hotel’s copper bath tub is a cosier proposition, tucked away in a stone vault in the basement. You’ll clink champagne flutes, then submerge yourselves in magnesium salt-enriched water before either a foot massage with eucalyptus oil or a bespoke facial and a scalp massage (£295 for 90 minutes).
The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa
The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa sits dead centre in the Royal Crescent, a semi-circle of gold-stone townhouses set above the city like a coronet atop the slope of Royal Victoria Park. Its bathhouse is in a former chapel, where a small pool, lit by gothic-arch windows, has massage jets you’ll surely worship. You could book a treatment with miracle-working Ground and Medik8 potions, but couples may prefer after-dark fun at a Twilight Session (£165 per person, including dinner), which starts with a 30-minute ritual of your choice, then private time in the pool, sauna, steam room and hot tub.
The treatment to book: Both No.15 by Guesthouse and Thermae Bath Spa offer plenty of treatments for two, from aromatherapy massages to bespoke facials.
Follow with: Royal Crescent’s garden has glorious flowering beds and makes a very special setting for afternoon tea. Or buy a brut from the Beckford Bottle Shop nearby and watch the sunset in Royal Victoria Park. To go full Austen, propose to your partner on Gravel Walk, like the protagonists of Persuasion.
Best for spiritual wellness
There are some parts even the most nimble-fingered spa therapists can’t reach. Bath’s Soul Spa goes into the beyond, drawing on the energy of astral bodies, ancestral healing through shamanic rituals and the decoding of tarot symbolism, before lightening the mood with laughter yoga. You could be embellished with crystals that act as tuning forks for your emotional state, or have someone intuit your off-kilter energy while coaxing your cheekbones out through vigorous facial massage.
If that sounds a little intense, we enjoyed the 30-minute lunchtime sound bath (£20), where the reclining chairs, eye masks, singing bowls and a dulcet voice telling you that ‘no one needs anything from you’ (heaven) make for a powerful pick-me-up. Sound baths take place in a Georgian building near the Thermae Bath Spa, so you could easily combine a soak in mineral-rich waters with a head-clearing session.
The Pig near Bath
Alternatively, The Pig near Bath (a 20-minute drive from the city) leans into ancient knowledge of botanicals with treatments carried out in the two cute, rustic Potting Sheds amid the kitchen gardens. Customised massages and refreshing facials use all-natural Tribe517 products (made on a herb and honey farm in south Wales), while other treatments involve gua sha, nourishing masks and hot stones. The walk back to the main hotel past berry cages, mint and lemon-verbena beds and apple orchards offers another botanical boost.
The treatments to book: At the Soul Spa, VR meditation (£20 for 30 minutes) adds gameplay to achieving enlightenment, using headsets loaded with calming scenes and hypnotic soundscapes. At The Pig, opt for the Garden Reset (£245 for two hours), which combines a tailored massage and facial. Whatever you choose, you’ll come away smelling like the hotel’s wildflower meadow.
Follow with: a stroll along the Bath Skyline Walk (accessed via Great Pulteney Street and Bathwick Hill). Or, if the idea of trekking three miles makes you feel exhausted, The Botanist’s Tomatini Plant Pot cocktail, with vodka, chilli, tomato juice and lime, gives you some of your five a day. From The Pig, visit Glastonbury Tor; linked to Arthurian legend and set at the convergence of ley lines, it’s said to be the spot for spiritual ignition.
Best for cult treatments
More than 25 years after Babington House opened as a country counterpart to London’s Soho House members’ club, city-dwellers still flock to its viridescent setting to get their mojo back. It’s here that the Cowshed spa brand began (in an actual cow shed), and treatments have moo-ved with the times — offering sought-after therapies in line with Soho House’s urban health clubs.
Don’t expect rolling in hay or granola-esque exfoliation — mud treatments are more mineral-rich than the stuff your wellies are caked in and are carried out in a steam room. In fact, diagnostic testing and biomarker screening, cell-repairing IV drips, serotonin boosters and vitamin infusions designed to tackle jetlag, hangovers or burn-out seem like the stuff of sci-fi-esque laboratories. Having them carried out in forested grounds with a duck pond makes the process feel more natural.
Babington House
Either look to the future with a rigorous facial routine: a Skinceuticals micro-peel, deeply moisturising Hydrafacial (with added ‘cryo-orbs’ for good measure), and LED mask. Or go worldly, with a Brazilian-style lymphatic drainage treatment or a Maharlika massage, which combines Thai, Lomi-Lomi, Filipino and Javanese techniques.
The treatment to book: We’re happy to put our faith in science (and our faces), but who could resist something as whimsically named as the ‘Lazy Forest’ experience? For this Sylvanian retreat, you hide away in a woodland cabin with a sauna and cold plunge pool, alternating between the two, before raiding a minibar curated to your tastes and some forest-bathing (£65 per person for 90 minutes).
Follow with: a trip to hippie enclave Frome, just a 15-minute drive away. You’ll find all kinds of woo-woo wellness from sound-bath meditations on inflatable rafts in a pond to herbalism walks and medicinal-mushroom workshops.
Best for deeper restoration
If turning back time is your aim, those seeking something more clinical than candlelight and singing bowls have options, too. Francis Hotel, set very centrally at the edge of Queen Square, has a new spa courtesy of a £14 million upgrade that offers guests maximum rejuvenation.
Two QMS Medicosmetics treatments will leave you fresh-faced: a bespoke collagen reset, plus the option to add on a de-puffing facial massage (from £125 for 60 minutes); and a complete contour with serums, sculpting and LED light therapy (from £180 for 90 minutes). Or try the Gaiyoga Lifting Facial, which uses a jade gua sha tool to contort your face into model proportions (from £170 for 90 minutes). For a gentler perk-up, there are private thermal experiences in the hotel’s sensory cabin (England’s only Espuro foam-steam bath), where you’re either enveloped in nourishing mud or playing with scented bubbles (from £115 for two for 45 minutes).
For more holistic life adjustments, drive 15 minutes south to Combe Grove, an 18th-century estate focused on long-term health goals. Day retreats home in on hormone and gut health or longevity, using body composition and mindful movement (with the option to add on glucose monitoring or blood tests, if you really want to get into the wellbeing weeds).
The treatment to book: The deep-muscle Theragun massage at Francis Hotel will hammer knots into submission. And Combe Grove works with a diverse group of practitioners specialising in many curatives: Emotional Freedom Techniques, hypnotherapy, osteopathy, acupuncture and more.
Follow with: a ‘reading spa’ at Mr B’s Emporium (£105 a person), just a few steps away. Admittedly, you may need to wait for your list of recommendations because this TikTok viral sensation books up about a year in advance, but the combo of tea, cake and £60 worth of books tailored to your tastes is the ideal final prescription.
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