HEALTH + WELLNESS
GOING UNDERGROUND …
Brighton’ s Harbour Spa is a lesson in subterranean chic
The Brighton Harbour Hotel is a many splendoured thing. As embodies the relaxed signature style of the Harbour Hotel group( there’ s a few in the pack, including Chichester), the Brighton offering has been developed to relish bit by bit. First, The Jetty restaurant opened – the city’ s latest and already lauded seafood eatery; then, leisurely, followed HarBAR – their very cool cocktail bar; next, the hotel above – 79 bedrooms, each with a stylish interior that brilliantly belies the buildings 19th-century exterior; and now, to top it all off, the Harbour Spa. Polly Humphris went along to check it all out.
Billed as‘ a fully immersive subterranean experience’, I was intrigued to find out more about the Brighton Harbour Hotel’ s Harbour Spa. Word on the street had disclosed some months before the grand unveiling that, while building what they thought would be a one-storey spa with six luxurious treatment rooms, a mood-lit indoor pool and a modern gym, the developers found yet another basement-level floor that they had never known existed. Incredible and fortuitous? Absolutely. But, how do you make a basement inviting, relaxing and in keeping with the rest of the hotel’ s perfectly poised atmosphere?
You don’ t. Instead, you fill it with a hydrotherapy pool, sauna, steam room, two Scandinavian hot tubs, relaxation room and exclusive private hire area and let it speak for itself. Of course it flows beautifully from its pearly-tiled, lemon-scented upstairs counterpart, but the basement of an already atmospheric Georgian building isn’ t just any old basement and this one’ s natural features
– exposed brick archways, cosy den-like areas and floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving – are all accessed via a polished concrete curved staircase: a veritable stairway to haven( see what I did there …).
When you’ re not lolling about in the hydrotherapy pool, which has an addictive water feature that massages your back as you sit under it, or contemplating staying in the Scandi hot tubs forever as you’ re enveloped in a bubbly blanket of musclesoothing warmth, you can of course indulge in a treatment or two. There’ s masses to choose from, from half-day ocean spa rituals that use traditional Swedish massage techniques to brush, polish and detoxify from head to toe, to express facials that can be completed in a lunch break – all using ESPA skincare; one of the most natural and effective ranges out there.
A sucker for anything promising to halt ageing in its scheming tracks, I opted for an 80-minute‘ Lift & Firm’ facial, which combines advanced active ingredients with specialised facial massage and lifting techniques to turn back the clock. From first meeting with my therapist, I could tell the products, the setting and her were a perfect fit; very friendly, but equally professional, she set to work with reassuring confidence explaining her actions every step of the way. Afterwards, my skin felt softer, but tighter, looked brighter and had a renewed plumpness – all the signs of brilliance.
Anyone is welcome to visit the Harbour Spa( whether they are staying at the hotel or not) for a one-off treatment, an indulgent spa day, or a spa break, and there’ s an entire catalogue of wonderful wellness to be had; I’ d recommend a visit wholeheartedly.
Brighton Harbour Hotel & Spa 64 King’ s Rd Brighton BN1 1NA
www. brighton-harbour-hotel. co. uk / spa
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