Cowshed Spa at Babington House

The one thing

Cowshed exists because of this building. Long before the name became a spa and skincare brand recognised across Soho House's hotels and on shelves far beyond them, it was a working cowshed and a handful of farm outbuildings on this Somerset estate, turned into treatment rooms almost by accident. The brand has since travelled everywhere, but the original is still here, on the same eighteen acres it started on.

The verdict

Babington House sits eighteen acres deep in Somerset countryside, a Grade II listed Georgian manor from 1705 that Soho House turned into its first country house, half members' club and half hotel, and the spa grew up alongside it in the estate's actual farm buildings rather than a purpose built annex. That history still shows in the atmosphere, which leans toward a relaxed country club rather than a formal five star hotel spa, robes worn without ceremony and staff who would rather phones stayed switched off than forms got filled in.

The grounds do a lot of the work before anyone reaches a treatment room. A walled garden supplies the estate's kitchens, a lake borders the outdoor pool, and a cricket pitch, tennis and padel courts and a croquet lawn spread across the rest of the eighteen acres, so a day here is as much about the wider estate as the spa itself. Two pools carry the bathing side, one indoors and heated, one outdoors and heated through the year with the lake as its backdrop, and a sauna, a woodfired sauna, a steam room and two cold plunges make up the heat and cold experience, used individually rather than as a set circuit.

The treatment menu runs on the original Cowshed range alongside SkinCeuticals and HydraFacial, and a dedicated Jennifer Young range brings specialist treatments for anyone living with or beyond cancer, a considered addition rather than a marketing afterthought. For anyone wanting more than the standard facilities, the Lazy Forest cabins sit apart from the main spa, private wooden cabins scattered across the grounds, each with its own sauna, cold plunge pool and lounge seating for up to four people, booked in ninety minute sessions through the Soho House app.

Access is the fact that shapes everything else about this listing. Babington House is a members' club first and a hotel second, and the spa follows the same rule, open to Soho House members and to guests staying in one of the estate's thirty three bedrooms, with Soho Friends able to book too provided a bedroom is reserved alongside it. There is no straightforward day spa product for a first time visitor arriving without a membership or a booking, so this is a spa to plan a stay or a membership around rather than one to add to a passing itinerary.

The water

The bathing side of Cowshed Spa is built for recovery rather than a long wandering journey. An indoor heated pool gives year round swimming regardless of the weather outside, and the outdoor pool, also heated through the year, sits with the estate's lake as a backdrop, genuinely one of the better views from any pool in this guide. Around them sit a standard sauna and a woodfired sauna, both dry heat, a steam room for wet heat, and two cold plunge pools for the sharp contrast afterward.

Beyond the main building, the Lazy Forest cabins offer a different kind of bathing entirely, each a private wooden cabin with its own sauna and cold plunge, booked for up to four people at a time in ninety minute sessions, effectively a bathing experience with the door closed to everyone else. Indoor and outdoor lounge spaces attached to the paid Soak Ritual give somewhere to lie still afterward, whichever route through the water someone takes.

Treatments

The treatment menu still carries Cowshed itself as the founding brand, alongside SkinCeuticals for skin treatments and HydraFacial for its resurfacing facials. The Marhalika Massage and Marhalika Facial are signature to Babington House specifically rather than shared across every Soho House spa, and the Mud treatment, a private steam room experience with self applied mud, can be booked solo or shared between two.

The Jennifer Young range deserves particular mention, a set of treatments designed specifically for anyone living with or beyond cancer, delivered by specialists trained in that care rather than adapted on the fly from a standard treatment. Maternity guests are looked after too, with treatments tailored around pregnancy and nothing offered in the first twelve weeks. Therapist gender can be requested at booking, and LED light therapy and IV infusions from a partner clinic sit at the more clinical end of the menu for anyone wanting to go beyond massage and facials.

Getting in

The spa opens daily from ten in the morning until eight at night. Booking runs through the Soho House app, through the spa's own booking site, or by phone or email, and every route requires membership or hotel guest status rather than open public access. No one under fourteen is permitted in the spa itself, and treatments for those between sixteen and eighteen need parental consent, even though the wider estate is genuinely set up for families with a creche, family rooms and timetabled children's pool hours elsewhere on the property.

There is no lift on site, so anyone with mobility needs should check step free access directly, though accessible toilets exist in the Main House and the gym, accessible parking is available, and ramps lead to the restaurants and the spa itself. Dogs are welcome across parts of the wider estate, though the spa area itself is not addressed either way.

What to know before you fall in love

Access sits with members and hotel or bedroom guests only, and there is genuinely no promoted route in for a first time visitor who is neither, so a membership or a booked stay needs to come first, not an afterthought.

The bathing side is a working country club set up rather than a destination thermal journey, a sauna, a woodfired sauna, a steam room and two cold plunges around two pools, with the private Lazy Forest cabins the way to go further if wanted.

No one under fourteen is permitted in the spa itself, even though the rest of the estate is genuinely built with families in mind, so this suits a couples or solo visit within a family friendly wider stay rather than a spa day for the whole group together.

Best for

Soho House members and hotel guests wanting an unpretentious country house spa break with real history behind it, and couples drawn to the estate itself as much as the treatment menu.