The Best Saunas in London
Saunas themselves are hardly a new addition to London life — they’ve long been tucked away inside spas, gyms and health clubs across the city. But pairing a steamy sweat session with an ice bath or cold plunge (known as contrast therapy) is having a serious moment.
The premise is simple: get hot, get cold, repeat. Whether you’re sweating it out in a traditional sauna or an infrared cabin alternating between extreme temperatures is said to boost circulation, reduce inflammation, improve sleep, aid muscle recovery, sharpen focus and help keep stress levels in check.
But London’s sauna boom isn’t just about wellness optimisation. Alongside the rise of contrast therapy, a new wave of community saunas has popped up across the capital. Affordable, accessible and social, these communal sweat spots are as much about meeting people as they are about improving wellbeing. Ready to break a sweat? Here are the best saunas in London…
This non-profit organisation runs outdoor saunas and cold plunges in Hackney, Stratford, Peckham, Camberwell and Walthamstow with the aim being to make saunas more accessible and affordable. Off-peak entry is £9.50 and peak entry is £16.50, with each site having a number of different communal saunas and cold baths. Community Sauna Baths also runs a regular programme of events, including sound baths, trans nights and aromatherapy experiences.
If you don’t mind sharing your sauna with a lot of other people, then Arc might be the one for you. The Canary Wharf wellness club boasts the largest sauna in the UK, with capacity to run contrast therapy classes for up to 50 people. You can partake in your own self-guided sessions or you can opt for one of the different classes, like Dopamine Reset, Happiness Hack, Breathe and Ground, and Morning Warrior. And if you wanna swap the club for the cold plunge, you can do that at Arc too with After Dark sauna parties.
SOAK is a floating sauna and cold plunge set aboard a canal boat that cruises through the city, moving between Haggerston, Hoxton, Angel, King’s Cross, Paddington, and Little Venice every two weeks. Bluebell is a restored 56-foot vessel with a wood-fired sauna, two stainless steel cold plunge pools, shower, a bar (where you can get a custom hydration drink made by A Bar With Shapes For a Name) and a rear deck space, with room for twelve people and sessions running at 75 minutes. It’s also completely off-grid, with canal water filtered, purified and treated on board to be served to guests.
Revitalise Urban Spa
One of the newest saunas on the scene, Revitalise Urban Spa in Hackney is home to both traditional Lithuanian and high-spec infrared saunas as well as copper ice baths. As well as different types of sessions, including upbeat gatherings with music and more serene morning experiences, Revitalise hosts a number of wellness workshops such as Aufguss rituals (where essential oils and heat are circulated in the sauna with fans) and breathwork.
Sauna Social Club in Peckham runs four different types of sauna sessions across the week, so it’s a great place for newbies or to try out different sauna experiences. You can move at your own pace with the quicker Essential or longer Social sessions; make a night of it with the Ambient sessions, where DJs provide the soundtrack; or focus on wellness with the Wellbeing sessions, which include activities like meditation, breathwork, yoga and deep listening.
Get a sweat on and enjoy cracking views over London at Rooftop Saunas on top of Netil House in London Fields and |nternational House in Brixton. The saunas here are for private use only (you can book up to groups of 4) and also include use of the cold plunge pools and waterfall buckets. There are three session lengths available – 30 mins, 60 mins or 90 mins – so you can pop in if you want a quick refresh or stay for a more in-depth sauna experience featuring essential oils and skincare botanicals, hot showers and private cool down rooms.
Sauna & Plunge in Shoreditch describes itself as a “social wellness experience” where you can improve your wellbeing through heat exposure, cold exposure and breathwork. The studio looks the part too with both steam and infrared saunas, 3D printed plunge pools made with eco recycled materials and a boutique coffee lounge.
High-tech infrared saunas are the name of the game over at Sweat Lounge in Chiswick. Unlike traditional saunas, which heat the air around you, infrared saunas heat your body directly so you can experience a more detoxifying sweat from these sessions. You can hit the IR saunas for a solo sweat or combine the sauna experience with added red light therapy for an even bigger wellbeing boost.
Set inside a Grade II-listed former bank opposite Buckingham Palace, The Bath House – Banya London combines old-building grandeur and oak-lined heat with enough polish to feel more Belgravia than brutalist sweatbox. The whole thing revolves around the hot-cold-hit-repeat rhythm. You sweat it out in the banya, plunge into icy water, then head to your table in the restaurant for Eastern European fare, from plates of pickles to bowls of dumplings, alongside healthy house-made juices or ice-cold shots of voddy. The signature treatment here is parenie, where a banshik works with bundles of soaked oak, birch and eucalyptus leaves to push heat and fragrant steam across your body in a way that’s part massage, part ritual. Come for the heat therapy, stay for the food, and leave wondering why every spa doesn’t involve beating around (with) the bush and carb loading in between.
Sweat it out by the water at Sweheat Sauna, the outdoor sauna experience at Western Beach in Royal Victoria Dock. The family-run biz has an inclusive and nurturing approach to sauna, working with emerging and established practitioners, artists and creatives. As well as the wood-fired saunas and cold plunge (which can also be booked for private experiences), Sweheat curates a cultural programme featuring events like storytelling, Aufguss, full moon rituals, women’s bath nights and more.
This Shoreditch spot is a social wellness house where you can come to sauna, cold plunge and move your body. Whether you’re looking to sweat it out or feel the burn, there’s a suitable session for you, with the likes of HIIT, yoga, qi gong, sound baths and sauna raves on the programme. And you can continue to be nourished post-sesh by grabbing some plant-based food from Palm Greens and a botanical elixirs from the alcohol-free bar.
The Banya No.1 website promises “something entirely different”, and honestly, we’ll give them that – it’s definitely different. Banyas are designed to make you sweat properly, mixing dry heat and steam to push your body into a deep sweat and flush out waste products and tended by a banya master – topless, naturally. Other treatments include parenie – rhythmic waving and gentle tapping with hot, fragrant branches inside a superheated room, followed by a bracing cold-water plunge – and mud masks. It might sound crazy, but Banya No.1 has developed a dedicated fanbase, including Kate Moss, Renée Zellweger and Justin Bieber, whose go-to order from the on-site restaurant is 150g of garlic bread sticks.
Sauna Mamas was founded by two friends whose love of sweat bathing is their strongest connection. With this East London bathhouse, they’re on a mission to help you have the best sweat possible. It’s the perfect place to pause, relax and take a moment for yourself, or if you’re looking for something more social, the Vyner Street Sessions on Friday and Saturday evenings bring album listening parties and DJ sets to the sanctum of a sauna.
