The Bothy at Heckfield Place

Welcome to the third iteration Fashion’The Global Spa Guide features 100 of the world’s best spas, based on first-person reviews and careful editing. This year, we are refocusing our attention on places with a strong reputation for providing exceptional care for the body and mind. Whatever you’re looking for in your health and wellness, you’ll find it here.

Why go here?

Heckfield Place is less than a decade old, this delightful hotel set in 438 acres of rural Hampshire just an hour’s drive from London only opened in 2018, but it already has an institutional feel. You can put this partly down to its magnificent surroundings: the wide driveway, the Grade II listed Georgian manor house is its beating heart, and of course the beautifully landscaped gardens, which include two lakes, seemingly endless forest paths and a working farm.

The reliance on English country house hotel clichés ends there, however: The interiors have been stylishly redesigned by Ilse Crawford’s protégé Ben Thompson, with bespoke modern furniture, crackling fireplaces, and a unique palette of soft greys, sages and earth tones throughout every room. (I particularly loved the earthy feel of the handwoven rush mats provided by a local workshop at the foot of the bed, and the terracotta tiles in the bathroom.) It looked and felt unlike anywhere else, which is what you’d expect from a hotel of this caliber.

Then, there’s The Bothy by Wildsmith, a 17,000-square-foot spa that’s only opening in 2023. (Wildsmith is the hotel’s in-house skincare line, named after the 19th-century estate’s head gardener. The brand is so popular that it’s now sold at Liberty and often appears in bathrooms at rival hotels—it’s just that good.) The reason it’s so many years after the hotel opened is that the team wanted to make sure every detail was right, and patience paid off: It’s pretty awesome. In the words of Reka Seres-Erdei, Director of The Bothy: “The Bothy is a reweaving of all parts of the estate – it represents a vision of accepting and living the natural cycle of the seasons.”