The Cowshed Spa at Soho Farmhouse

Soho Farmhouse (Soho House) · Great Tew, nr Chipping Norton, Cotswolds

Our assessment: Gold · 81%

The one thing

Soho Farmhouse has done something nobody else in Britain has thought of and sunk four private stone bathing tubs into its lake, so you soak at 38°C in water thick with mineral salt while the surface of the lake sits an arm's length away at shoulder height. Each tub has its own canopy, its own cold shower and a telephone for ordering a cocktail, and nobody is within earshot. People book the Cowshed for this alone.

The verdict

The estate takes cars away at the gate, which turns out to be the first good decision the place makes for its guests. A hundred acres of Oxfordshire lie between the gate and the Farmyard, crossed by bicycle or on a milk float, past the boating lake and the kitchen gardens and the stables, and the journey does its work, because by the time you arrive you are moving at the speed of the place rather than your own.

The architecture is farm, being barns and whitewashed huts and timber cabins, all done with enormous care and no reverence at all. The spa itself sits in the Farmyard, and it is lovely, but it is not the reason people cross the country to come here.

The reason is the Lazy Lake. Bathers choose their salt, Epsom or magnesium flakes or Himalayan, and settle in, and the heat closes over the shoulders while the lake goes on being a lake in every direction. On the bank sit three circular sauna cabins that pair infrared with rock tower heaters, so the heat arrives from two directions at once and settles into the muscle rather than sitting on the skin, and alongside them a steam room and an ice room where the air feels solid for the first three seconds and then simply clarifying. The Wellness Barn nearby keeps four ice baths for the brave, ten minutes for ten pounds, and people come out of them grinning.

The whole circuit is outdoors, and that is the design rather than an oversight. Rain improves it and winter improves it more. Phones and cameras are banned around the lake and the ban is genuinely kept, so the soundtrack is water and the odd cabin door and a lot of people not performing for anyone. Then there is the Boathouse, where a 135ft pool runs from inside a barn straight out into the open air and stays at 35°C all year, so a January swim starts indoors and ends under the sky with steam rising around your head.

The treatment list goes far deeper than a countryside property has any business going, from Cowshed's own botanical range all the way to the Lazy Lab's doctor reviewed blood diagnostics, and the mood through all of it is sociable and unbothered rather than hushed. It is a countryside club rather than a temple, but in a tub in the lake with the light going it is as still as anywhere in England.

The water

The Lazy Lake runs in timed two hour slots, with a cold shower at every tub and the sauna cabins, steam room and ice room on the bank all included in the two hours. The Wellness Barn keeps four ice baths at £10 for ten minutes, and the Boathouse pool is open to ages 15 and up. Day beds sit out over the water, some treatments are given on sheltered decking in the open air, and each tub has a telephone for ordering food and drink without getting out.

There is no hammam, no experience showers and no indoor thermal circuit. What is here lives outdoors, depends on the weather, and is extraordinary.

Treatments

Thirteen private treatment rooms plus four mani pedi chairs.

The Lazy Lake experience is £70 a person for two hours, or £105 with the Omorovicza upgrade and a private lounge. The Moor Mud Ritual is the headline at £325, being two hours of Omorovicza full body work with a mud wrap, sound healing and copper gua sha. Cowshed's Signature Massage starts at £90 for 30 minutes and £150 for the hour, the Bespoke+ facial is 90 minutes from £200, the Omorovicza Performance HydraFacial is 90 minutes from £290 and the Rejuvenate & Sculpt face and body ritual is 90 minutes from £265.

The massage menu goes far deeper than most hotel spas bother with, from Swedish and deep tissue through to Brazilian lymphatic drainage, reflexology and reiki. Mothers to be are looked after properly from twelve weeks, anyone living with or beyond cancer can book through the Jennifer Young range, which is a quietly wonderful thing for a spa to offer, and the menu reaches into Ayurvedic technique, facial sculpting and buccal massage as well. The therapists work with Cowshed's own botanical range alongside SkinCeuticals, Omorovicza, The Light Salon, FaceGym and Dimple Amani's Ayurvedic techniques. Ask for a female or male therapist when you book and they will sort it.

The Lazy Lab is its own world of hyperbaric oxygen from £110 an hour, a red light bed from £70 for half an hour, and IV infusions running from an Express Mini at £190 up to NAD+ at £875. Body Brilliant blood diagnostics start at £250 for seventy or more biomarkers and reach £1,595 for the three hundred marker longevity panel, each one reviewed by a doctor and turned into a personal plan.

Getting in

This is a private members' club and there is no day pass at any price, so it is worth being completely clear about who can actually get through the gate.

Soho House members have the spa as part of membership and can bring up to three guests any day of the week, and a guest can book treatments so long as the member is having one too, which means a non member genuinely can spend the day here without a bedroom. Anyone staying the night is in, with 114 bedrooms and cabins across the Piglets, Farmhuts, studios and riverside cabins. Soho Friends membership at £100 a year opens the House and the spa during a bedroom stay. That is the full list, and a Cowshed gift card, valid here though it is, confers no right of entry on its own.

Members and Soho Friends book through the Soho House app under Wellness or at spa.cowshed.com after signing in, and guests of members should call 01608 691000 or email healthclub.farmhouse@sohohouse.com. A card secures the booking, with 24 hours' notice needed or the treatment is charged in full, and the Lazy Lake wants booking a long way out as peak weekend slots go close to a month ahead.

The spa and the Lazy Lab run 10.00 to 20.00 daily with the lake bookable across the same hours, weather permitting. The gym opens 06.30 to 22.00 and the House itself 07.00 to 01.00. The Health Club is 16 and over throughout, with 16 to 18s treated with parental consent, the Boathouse pool is 15 and over and the Teeny Pool belongs to the under 15s. Robes are provided, and phones, cameras and laptops stay in the locker.

On getting about, there is an accessible toilet in the spa, accessible changing and a passenger lift at the Boathouse, two blue badge bays and an accessible milk float on request from reception. The Lazy Lake sits on a small island reached by a footbridge and the main square is pebbled, so do call ahead if step free routing matters to you and they can plan the day around it.

What to know before you fall in love

• The public cannot book this spa. Entry needs Soho House membership, an invitation from a member, or a bedroom booking with Soho Friends, and there is no day pass at any price, so this is the first thing to settle before any plans get made.
• The thermal circuit is outdoors and depends on the weather. In the cold and the rain that is the whole joy of it, but it is not a guaranteed wet weather retreat.
• Book a long way ahead, because four tubs in timed two hour slots means peak summer weekends go close to a month out. Weekdays are a much calmer place.
• The spa is 16 and over even though the House around it is built for families, so expect a clean split between the family end of the estate and the quiet end.
• A gift card is not a ticket. Cowshed cards are redeemable here but the membership or the bedroom has to come first.

Best for

Couples and a romantic night in a cabin, two or three friends who will book the lake and stay in it all afternoon, and visitors from abroad who want the most distinctive thermal experience in the British countryside.