The Gainsborough Bath Spa is a spa hotel. Sorry, read that again: The Gainsborough Bath Spa is a spa hotel. Not a hotel-with-a-spa, but a spa hotel whose entire raison d’etre is its beautiful suite of treatment rooms and the accompanying glass-roofed bath house. This isn’t somewhere to consider taking a quick dip one empty afternoon on holiday, it’s where you come to feel righteously annoyed whenever life drags you away from the thermal waters.
The hotel lays claim to two ‘firsts’. One, it’s the only hotel in the country to have access to real thermal spa waters (the very same ones for which Bath is famous), which are enriched with a semi-magical blend of minerals renowned for an endless list of health-giving benefits. Two, it’s the first UK hotel from the YTL group who pioneered the Spa Village model at locations across Asia, combining local remedies and traditions with contemporary super-high-luxe bathing trends.
Purely for reasons of journalistic integrity (yes, really), I opted for the spa’s most luxurious treatment: the Golden Massage. Centred on the healing properties of gold, it starts with a full-body exfoliation using a floral-scented sugar scrub that smelled like my grandma’s dressing table (that, my friends, is a very good thing). Hanna, the spa’s understandably most in-demand therapist, then gave me what I call a ‘proper massage’ using gold-infused oil. Not your average, silky-smooth spa massage, but a genuine bone-realigning, knot-untangling muscle-melter - but with none of the pain of hardcore deep tissue.
After being turned into an Oscar statue, I later slipped between thermal pools, infrared saunas, extremely steamy steam rooms and a big floaty pool as part of the bath house’s seven-step bathing ritual, which has the quasi-religious aura all great sweat, ice and soak regimes do. Around the edge of the main pool are some of the strongest massage jets known to humankind (“Intense - like a meat grinder!” Hanna chuckled to me). The masochist in me responded very well to these scapula-punching spurts and I left with two shoulders who knew nothing of previous bad posture at a keyboard.
After all this, the hotel’s other areas can’t help but feel a little less exciting. Highlights include the idiosyncratic shape of the rooms - a lovely quirky touch - and the genius extra savoury course during Afternoon Tea paying homage to the hotel’s Asian owners. I also had a Perfect Egg (and, I’m told, I have very high egg standards) at breakfast, wobbling deliciously on its bed of avocado and rye.
But ultimately, this place is all about the baths. Slather on mud, shine in gold or just sweat it all out like a post-bacchanal Roman. Let’s float.
Neighbourhood
Situated on the attractively-named Beau Street, The Gainsborough is in about as central a central location as they come. Glide up Milsom Street while browsing the shops, grab sweet treats at Mrs Potts next to the Abbey and listen to the band in Parade Gardens: it’s all a very short walk away.
Nearby
Mjölk: For cinnamon buns, cardamom buns, cream buns and more Nordic-inspired treats (including buns) at a lovely artisan cafe right next to the Abbey.
Ustinov Studio: For world-class theatre programmed by the excellent Deborah Warner and performed in a teeny-tiny space.
Swoon: For pistachio and hazelnut gelato you’ll be dreaming about for months afterwards.
Time Out Tip: In the bath house alcove is the spa’s legendary help-your-self Georgian hot chocolate, a megawatt hit of cocoa, spices and chilli. Everyone goes back for seconds (and thirds).