Best for: ancient treatments with a twist

No wonder there was so much excitement about this 2015 Bath arrival. This is how to take the city’s thermal waters in style, and there is nowhere else in Britain like it. To bathe in waters drawn deep from the earth, waters that have to be cooled rather than heated (they are naturally steaming hot, warmed by geothermal energy to between 69°C and 96°C, and bubble up through an artesian well directly from the aquifer that lies beneath the city), is a profound and decadent experience. The newly built colonnaded bathing atrium, sympathetically designed and flooded with natural light, is right on the site of the original Roman Baths upon which the city was founded. 

The Victorians first discovered them when they were adding a wing onto the Royal United Hospital in the 1860s: just one of this building’s previous incarnations. Yes, you can – and ought to – visit The Roman Baths complex just across the road (it is astonishing: vast, ancient, mysterious, though the waters are untreated so you’re not allowed to touch them), and yes, you could book into the Thermal Bath day spa, also fed by thermal springs and with a rooftop pool. But if you seek privacy, superlative treatments from world-renowned spa-hotel brand YTL – whose other outposts include Pangkor Laut in Malaysia–a top-notch Asian-inspired restaurant and a bed so comfortable you barely move all night, then this is Britain’s most exciting new spa arrival.

The hotel itself is glossy, big and bold. It won’t win any prizes for exciting or quirky design, and the atmosphere is sadly a little corporate, but it is exactly what high-swinging Americans will want in their city break. The baths are open exclusively to hotel guests from 7am-9am and 8pm-10pm each day; outside of these times you need to book a spa treatment to use them, even if you’re staying at the hotel, which initially seems a little mean but averts overcrowding. There’s a whole circuit set out: it takes about an hour and includes increasingly warm pools, cold shower hoses to blast the lymphatic system, steam rooms, saunas, an ice cove and, finally, the triumphant main atrium pool with various double seats and powerful massage jets, the ultimate being the overhead shoulder blasters. Staff are on hand to remind you how to use the circuit and you can pick between drinking gentle lavender-scented water or little liquid chocolate shots. And the point of it all? It’s fair to say that simply floating and larking about in the pools will annihilate stress, but the mineral-rich water is also a remedy in itself: good for dry skin, good for joint pain, good for muscle tension, arthritis and rheumatism. No wonder they offer private aquatic body treatments where, in the strong arms of a therapist, you are stretched and swished about in the water; it’s deeply relaxing for both mind and body. 

Other highlights include the Aroma Bar, where you can make up your own personalised sachet of aromatherapy-oil-infused salts (use them in the sauna), and – in a nod to the company’s roots – the signature massages that leave you smelling of lemongrass. Thoughtfully conceived and sensitively executed, this is the spa hotel that Bath, at last, deserves. It is smart, but with a heart. Every member of staff is willing you to have a good time, all of them are 100 per cent behind the vision. You can’t help but feel the Romans would be proud.

Address: The Gainsborough Bath Spa, Beau Street, Bath
Price: Doubles from$350