USP The £2.5m Bath House Spa opened in November 2005 and won the Silver Award for Favourite Spa at the British Travel Awards in 2006. Staff are efficient, friendly and full of knowledge about their trade and the products they use. The six treatment rooms have a ranch like feel in keeping with the location.

There’s a 16m indoor swimming pool with 270-degree views of the surrounding paddocks and forest, an outdoor hot tub, sanarium, sauna, Klafs steam room, Kneipps foot baths, Klafs experience showers and a hydrotherapy pool – good for cellulite and mobility problems.

I didn’t get a chance to try the Rasul, a 16th century Arabian-inspired cleansing ritual that combines three mud treatments for different areas of the body, but it sounded like fun. A gentle tropical rain shower washes the mud away in a twinkling fibre-optic lit steam room. There’s also a fitness suite, a small dance studio offering one-to-one sessions in yoga and core conditioning and in the summer you can do circuit training and cycles through the forest.

AMBIENCE The spa is modern and comfortable and a huge effort has been made to fit in with the nature around it. A roof garden gives great views of wild ponies and horses grazing in the nearby paddock and if you look carefully you might spot the albino in the herd of deer. Within the hotel you can relax or have lunch in three lounging areas all designed with a gentleman’s club in mind. Big studded leather sofas surround open fires and the Polo Bar is decked out with old-fashioned polo hats, mallets, balls and tournament shields on the shelves.

EXPERIENCE The Bath House Spa uses two spa products. The Numbers Range, exclusive to the spa, contains almost entirely organic ingredients. The therapists will mix fresh fruit, vegetables or herbs from the spa’s gardens specifically to your requirements. The Italian Comfort Zone skincare line is results driven and contains ingredients that target specific areas of concern.

Hot Stone Therapy comes under the Comfort Zone umbrella and although it’s easy to see the benefits of having someone massage the tension from your stress receptacles, using stones to pump energy back into a weary body sounded like New Age mumbo jumbo to me.

There’s nothing modern about it though. Hot stone massage is an ancient practice originating thousands of years ago from the Far East and placing the stones on specific areas of the body is said to clear energy channels to promote wellbeing and good health. The heat from the stones relaxes stiff joints, increases circulation and activates lymph flow, which assists detoxification and thereby boosts your immune system. Tensions held at the deepest level can be released and dissipated.

I’d just finished my first week back at work after the excesses of Christmas and New Year, not to mention the obscenely rich dinner I’d wolfed the night before washed down by too many to remember double vodkas. I desperately needed to see “Revitalisation” on the spa menu, so when my therapist Nicki told me that she buried the smooth black Basalt stones in the hotel’s grounds to give them back their energy after each use and that the best time to do that was during a full moon, I sniggered.

While she worked her magic I thought about full moons changing tides and making beasts of men, so maybe it could give the stones enough energy to revitalise me after all.

She placed them on top of a towel up my spine and across my shoulders and explained that my body would draw energy where it was most needed. The areas left the reddest would be the places lacking in energy the most. She then massaged aromatic oil in to my legs, arms and stomach while gently gliding the stones over my skin and even between my toes.

The releasing of bad energy can often transfer itself on to the therapist leaving them quite distraught after a session and Nicki had psychologically prepared herself before my treatment by imagining her toes had roots sprouting into the earth keeping her grounded. Hot Stone Therapy could be psychotherapy for those in fear of Freudian delving and by the time my session was over I felt deeply relaxed and stress free hoping that my woes had flown out of the window and not onto Nicki.

FOOD The low romantic lighting and filtered ambient music in the Stag restaurant is a perfect setting for feeding your loved one a mouthful of spicy Rillette from the ‘Duck Three Ways’ starter, or a slice of melt in your mouth ‘New Forest Venison’ in rich poached baby pear, juniper and blackberry jus. The Polo Bar, the only smoking area, offers a reasonable light lunch and snack menu for children. At breakfast there’s the full English blow out or the healthier option of fruit salad, seeds, prunes and dried figs.

IN CROWD Loved up couples on weekend breaks and nervous boyfriends eager to transform their girlfriend into a fiancée during a ride through the Forest to a champagne picnic in the woods, which the hotel will happily organise. The bride and groom can be flown in by helicopter on their wedding day or chauffeur driven to the hotel in a Rolls Royce Phantom. Also popular with mothers and daughters bonding over a Green Clay Cleanse facial or a Monticelli Mud body wrap.

WALLET WATCH A 75-minute Hot Stone Massage costs £70. Spa days start from £105.00 per person. The spa offers various special pampering days throughout the year. During Christmas 2006 they made a Mulled Wine Wrap and are planning a Chocolate Body Wrap for Easter. There are Valentine’s Day offers including a private Rasul, where you can cover your loved one in mud, including a one-hour duo massage in their double treatment room, topped off with lunch in the spa lounge costing £135.00 per person based on two people. Rooms in New Park Manor start from £215.00 for a Classic Double rising to £315.00 for a Four Poster room. Escorted horse rides in the Forest start from £15.00 for half an hour

NEED TO KNOW New Park Manor Hotel and Equestrian Centre, Lyndhurst Road, Brockenhurst, New Forest, Hampshire SO42 7QH. (01590 623467) New Park Manor is located on the A337, 8 miles south of junction 1 on the M27 and 95 miles from London. 90 minutes from London Waterloo to Brockenhurst (5 minutes from hotel). www.newparkmanorhotel.co.uk

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