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The Porchester Centre,Queensway London UK W2 5HS

This is a dream of a spa to visit when in London because it is considered to be one of the ‘proper spas’ reflecting Victorian style of living. The good part is that you don’t have to be member to get in. For a mere £20.35 I was able to get a visitor pass for the day to sample some of the treats on offer. If you are resident of the borough its a lot less so if you intend to go to the spa often then its worthwhile signing up for one. This spa is such a delight to visit that it has been preserved as an English Heritage site and has many visitors throughout the year-although its not overcrowded.

Porchester Spa was opened in 1929 and was known under the name of Turkish and Russian Vapour Baths. Today it has undergone a major face-lift in so far as being a Grade 11 status will allow. The renovation brings the spa up-to-date with the following features: it has a new ventilation system,new showers, extensively retiled shower rooms,enlarged sauna and a total make-over. In my honest opinion its a great relic from the bygone era and an excellent place to end up having a decent budget type pampering. If you have touring all around London and then will go a long way in helping you relax and relieve the stresses of the day. Also it is so centrally placed that it is very easy to get to -is easily accessible by public transport from places like Oxford Street, Knightsbridge and High St Kensington.

The spa offers many types of beauty treatments,but if you don’t want to go for that you can jus relax in the huge marble and green-tiled on a comfortable lounger and indulge yourself at the bar either muching healthy tit-bits or even gorging yourself on a fry-up. Despite the fact that the spa has some of the old institutionalised lockers and curtained of changing rooms-it is still a lot of elegant features.

For such a small space you will be amazed as to how much it can contain: it has two steam rooms, a sauna, three Turkish  hot rooms of varying degrees of temperature and huge cold pool for plunging into afterwards or in between a s the case maybe.

There is a huge array of treatments available-the one that I had was the body scrub with a Morroccan mit costing £15.00 which was invigorating and very uplifting. But I think that the spa’s most popular feature is the adapted Victorian beauty treatments developed by Lee Balch who has been there for thirty-five years. She has adapted an unusual Russian birch-leaf treatment which involves being massaged with giant soap smothered raffia brush in a steam room-costing £25.00.

But there are many other modern treatments like testingout the firm massage with jasmine oil on a marble slab followed by hot-wraps again costing around £25.00.

Please note that Balch is only the premises during Men only and mixed sessions and it is advisable to book in advance.

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