{"product_id":"fletchers-cottage-spa-at-archerfield-house","title":"Fletcher's Cottage Spa at Archerfield House","description":"\u003cp\u003eArcherfield House · Dirleton, East Lothian\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur assessment: \u003cstrong\u003eGold\u003c\/strong\u003e · 82%\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eThe one thing\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the far end of a walled garden planted with roses, wildflowers, sculptural grasses and organic herbs stand two small huts, and inside each one a bath is drawn for a single person and lit by candles. The water might be hand harvested organic seaweed, or an oatmeal base carrying ylang ylang, lavender and mandarin, or magnesium and arnica with eucalyptus running through it. Thirty minutes in the bath comes with ninety more in the sauna, the steam room and the garden itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eThe verdict\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eFletcher's Cottage is not a cottage and was never converted from one. It was built for the purpose in 2012, eight thousand square feet of it, on the Archerfield estate on the East Lothian coast between the golfing village of Gullane and the seaside town of North Berwick, and the name is simply a name. Sian Parry Jones designed it around an idea of working in harmony with nature, which in practice meant walls clad in recycled local potato crates, lightshades made out of chicken wire, and a colour palette that stays out of the way. The rooms are warm and low lit and a little rough at the edges in a way that expensive rooms usually are not, and it is much the better for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe estate around it runs to five hundred and fifty acres. A seventeenth century mansion house sits at the heart of it, brought back from near dereliction in 2002 with Historic Environment Scotland watching over the work, and two golf courses run out towards the sea, Fidra Links laid through pine forest in 2004 and Dirleton Links along coastal ground that has held golf for more than a century. Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have taken the shape of Treasure Island from the isle of Fidra, which lies just offshore and is visible from the beach at Yellowcraigs, and the John Muir Way runs along the same stretch of coast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe spa keeps deliberately to itself inside all of that. There is no pool, no long thermal circuit to walk and no spa lunch, and the day is built instead around one treatment with a long slow surround to it. Every guest is given a private changing room with its own shower and lavatory, a personal relaxation space, and a share of the Relax Lounge, which has log burners at one end and the garden through the glass at the other. Shoes come off at the door and stay off. There is a subscription to a newspaper and magazine app for the reading hours, which is a small thing and tells you what sort of afternoon is intended.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eThe water\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is no pool at Archerfield, and that is worth knowing before rather than after. The water here is for bathing in and steaming in, and there is nothing to swim.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat exists is well made and quite short. The Marine Steam Room runs on salt and is aimed at the chest and the sinuses. The Lavender Sauna works organic lavender through dry heat. Sensation showers and an ice fountain handle the cold end of it, and the Relax Lounge takes the weight afterwards. Every treatment on the menu carries a robe, slippers, a welcome drink, the private changing room and time in all of it, so the thermal rooms arrive attached to something rather than sold on their own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen there are the huts, standing on their own out in the walled garden. Each takes one person and holds one bath, and each ritual runs thirty minutes with ninety minutes of thermal use and lounge either side, at eighty pounds. The VOYA bath uses organic hand harvested seaweed to draw and soften the skin. Beatitude Calming Peace is oatmeal based with ylang ylang, lavender, mandarin, petitgrain and cedarwood, and comes with a guided meditation. Uplifting Joy runs orange, mandarin, grapefruit and bergamot instead. Bamford B Strong is magnesium and arnica montana with oat extract, built for legs that have walked or played golf all morning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe rasul is the other private room and the only other water worth the name, a self led mud and steam chamber sold over two hours at ninety pounds for one or a hundred and sixty for two. Fifteen or twenty minutes of steam draws the skin, then the mud comes off with a full body exfoliation, then moisturiser, and the whole thing is done at your own pace with nobody in the room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOnce a month, on the first Wednesday, the thermal rooms open in the evening on their own for ninety minutes at fifty pounds. It is the only route in that does not involve booking a treatment, and at that price it is the most interesting thing on the list.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eTreatments\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree houses do most of the work. Bamford, VOYA and Beatitude are the named partners, with a short run of treatments under the spa's own name and a QMS residency running alongside for skin. Sixty minutes sits at a hundred and forty pounds for most of the menu, ninety minutes at a hundred and eighty five to a hundred and ninety five, and the Bamford Ultimate Massage at ninety minutes is a hundred and ninety.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe VOYA relationship goes back to the spa's first year and it shows in the depth of it, eleven treatments across facials, wraps and massage, and the seaweed running through the whole line. The Skin Supreme Facial and the Organic Seaweed Wrap are both ninety minutes at a hundred and ninety five pounds. Bamford covers the deep tissue and organic facial end. There is a Himalayan salt stone massage, a lymphatic drainage flow massage worked with movement cupping, reflexology, and reiki with a specialist available on request.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo things on the menu are better than the surrounding market. The first is a standing cancer wellness pathway, three treatments developed with VOYA, priced and bookable on the public list like anything else rather than adapted quietly on request. The second is the pregnancy provision, three treatments across Bamford and VOYA including a ninety minute one, developed with an expert in pregnancy yoga.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDay packages run from Odyssea at a hundred and ninety five pounds midweek, which pairs a bath hut ritual with a back massage and a radiance facial and sends you home with a pillow spray. B Bespoke is two hundred and sixty five and adds a foot bathing ritual, a massage and facial duo and ten pounds towards the shop. Made For Two is three hundred and eighty for two people, and runs the rasul first and then a treatment each in the double room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eGetting in\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnybody can book. There is no membership, no residency requirement and no list, and the day spa has been open to outside guests since it opened in 2012. Booking is online through the spa's own engine, by telephone on 01620 897050, or by email to the spa reservations address. Payment is taken in full at the time of booking, American Express is not accepted, and cancellation is forty eight hours for an individual and seventy two for a group of more than eight treatments.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe spa is sixteen and over at all times, with no children's hours and no family provision. Arrival is asked fifteen minutes ahead, which buys a tour, a consultation form and the shoes off. Facility use runs only during the allocated time on the booking, so the sauna is not somewhere to drift back to at four o'clock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArcherfield sits two miles out of Gullane on the A198 heading towards North Berwick. There is accommodation on the estate for the overnight version, in Pavilion Suites, lodges, a boathouse and a cottage, with three residential spa packages attached to them, and the Clubhouse handles the food since the spa does none.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eWhat to know before you fall in love\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThere is no pool of any kind, here or anywhere on the estate, so this is a bathing and steaming day and not a swimming one.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe thermal run is genuinely short at one sauna, one steam room, sensation showers and an ice fountain, and the good water is in the private rooms you book separately.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe bath huts are published as not suitable for guests with mobility issues, and no wider access statement is published, so a call ahead is worth making if that matters.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe spa is sixteen and over throughout, so it is no use for a family day.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFacility access comes attached to a treatment. The only exception is one ninety minute evening a month, on the first Wednesday.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThere is no spa cafe and no spa lunch. Food means walking over to the Clubhouse and booking a table.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOpening hours are not published, so agree your window when you book.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003ch2\u003eBest for\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnyone who would rather have one very good bath than a long circuit. Couples, because the rasul for two and the double treatment room make a genuine pair of hours rather than two separate appointments in the same building. Golfers and walkers coming off the links or the John Muir Way, for whom the magnesium and arnica hut is the obvious end to a morning. Anyone going through cancer treatment or pregnancy who wants the option priced and printed rather than negotiated. And anybody who finds most spas a little too polished, because the potato crates and the chicken wire and the garden gate are the whole point of this one.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Luxury Spa Escapes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54771593412949,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0864\/5217\/5189\/files\/pexels-photo-14930237.jpg?v=1787876639","url":"https:\/\/luxuryspaescapes.com\/es\/products\/fletchers-cottage-spa-at-archerfield-house","provider":"Luxury Spa Escapes","version":"1.0","type":"link"}