UK Retreats
Champneys - Choose from three elegant countryside spa resorts and hotels in the heart of the UK countryside for a luxurious and invigorating retreat. Available year-round, enjoy a spa retreat accompanied by one of our instructor led sessions, with the latest leisure facilities, luxurious accommodation, gourmet dining and glamorous bars.
Guests are spoilt for choice with the range of revitalising spa treatments and relaxing massages on offer in the tranquil surroundings of the English countryside. Focus on your fitness with a challenging boot camp programme and benefit from a nutritional and healthy menu. Also balance your mind, body and soul with a series of yoga, Pilates and meditation sessions.
Shropshire
One of England’s quietest counties, Shropshire is an escapist’s delight. Hugging the Welsh border in the West Midlands, it lays out a blanket of lush hills, woodlands, and farmland that make it a perfect spot for unwinding and recharging your batteries. Its scenic highpoint is the Shropshire Hills of its south, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty formed of rugged ridges and deep valleys and speckled with Iron Age hillforts.
To the north of the county, gentler landscapes prevail, unfurling shimmering ‘meres’, canals, peat marshes, and storybook castles. Plum in Shropshire’s centre, meanwhile, is the enchanting county town of Shrewsbury. Enclosed by the Severn River, this history-steeped town hosts a delightful castle, black-and-white Tudor houses, and crooked passageways crammed with shops, pubs, museums, and eateries. Other black-and-white market towns abound elsewhere, including the cultural and culinary gem that is Ludlow, renowned for its food festival and outdoor market. Shropshire’s storied Roman, medieval, and Industrial Revolution past is evident everywhere too, from UNESCO-listed Ironbridge Gorge to stunning Ludlow Castle.
East Sussex
Squeezed between West Sussex and Kent, East Sussex offers an ever-changing mosaic of landscapes, making it a wonderfully rewarding place to stay. Along its coast, white cliffs and pebble beaches reign supreme around Beachy Head, giving way to fishing ports and villages redolent of its seafaring and smuggling past. Inland, the countryside shifts from the sculpted chalklands of the South Downs National Park to marshy levels before folding into the undulating valleys, vineyards, and woods of the High Weald.
Here, gentle hills, oast houses, patchworked fields, forests, and castles like moated Bodiam seem light years from London, only 40 or so miles away. The county’s towns also change with their surroundings, from trendy Brighton and genteel Eastbourne to quirky Hastings and historic Battle, whose Abbey marks the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings, through to the cobbled former Cinque Port of Rye. Food, beer, art, and vintage shopping are themes everywhere, from boho Lewes, the county town, to the gastropubs and antique stores of villages like Mayfield.
Hampshire
A charming balance of coast and countryside, Hampshire is bounded by the suburbs of London to the north, Dorset to the west, West Sussex to the east, and the English Channel to the south, and as southeast England’s largest county, packs much into its borders. Above all, though, this is a county which that embodies quintessential England.
In the northeast, classic countryside takes centre stage, with ancient woods, heaths, and charming villages and small towns meeting the chalk downland of the South Downs National Park, and providing a soothing escape from urban life. In the south, the age-old woods and pastures of the New Forest beckon, as does the vibrant coastal city of Southampton and the maritime air and dockyards of Portsmouth. The interior of the county is rich in history, too. Highlights include cobbled Winchester, England’s former capital and home to splendid Winchester Cathedral; Chawton, the one-time home of author Jane Austen, and Highclere Castle, the setting for the popular period TV drama, Downtown Abbey.
Dorset
Huddled between Hampshire, Wiltshire and Devon, Dorset is one of southwestern England’s most enchanting counties. Mixing a postcard-worthy coastline with rolling downland, chalk ridges, and secluded valleys dotted with enchanting villages, it serves up many treasures and pleasures.
Along its English Channel shores, elegant resorts like Bournemouth and Lyme Regis bring in summer crowds, as does its ancient stretch of UNESCO-listed Jurassic Coast, famous for its fossil-freckled cliffs and photogenic beaches like Durdle Door. Dorset’s interior, meanwhile, is a place where you can feel at one with nature. Sheep-dotted pastures, open heaths, and tree-topped hills offer a lyrical backdrop for slowing down and decompressing, as do the rolling grasslands of the Cranborne Chase Area of Natural Beauty. The county and its environs also offer a wealth of historic cities and sights, including beautiful Dorchester, the cobbled market town of Shaftesbury, the Georgian gem of Blandford Forum, and the nearby cathedral city of Salisbury.