USP Just down the road from the York Racecourse lies Middlethorp Hall, an 18th-century country house hotel built of red brick. A short trip from the stately mansion is a tiny cottage, formerly a residential home. Now it’s home to Middlethorp Hall’s thimble-sized spa.

AMBIENCE Bougainvillea creeps around the doorframe and umbrella-shaded café tables cluster outside the windows of a cheerful little house. This unlikely building was reclaimed from residential anonymity to become Middlethorp Hall’s spa.

Each of its three treatment rooms are located in what were once bedrooms of the house, branching off a tiny corridor upstairs. Amusingly, just a few months ago one of the home’s former owners returned to find herself receiving a wrap in her former boudoir.

Downstairs, in what once may have been the kitchen and lounge, a large pool spans the bottom floor; nearby a cramped locker room, steam room and sauna are also tucked into a tiny receiving-room.

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EXPERIENCE The spa’s menu consists largely of the upmarket skin-care range Decleor, with a few twists – an Indian head massage and an algae wrap, for example – among the otherwise standard spa selections. Booking in advance is essential as with only a trio of treatment rooms, the handful of earnest young therapists get swamped.

The treatments reflect a Western spa agenda, focused on eradicating flaws and relieving tension rather than Eastern influenced chakra-aligning mind-body therapies seen in other spas. There’s vigorous cellulite-crushing massage, a cocktail of “zesty butters” designed to firm-up wobbly bits, and a session simmering under a warming blanket coated in detoxing “spice powder”.

FOOD You can sup on a light fare of Prêt-a-Manger style lunch choices: sandwiches stuffed with various fillings that you can enjoy in the dappled sunlight at the café tables outside.

For luxurious meal, head across the road to Middlethorp Hall’s excellent dining room where a seasonally-varied two or three-course meal (£17 and £23 respectively) may feature scrumptious Jerusalem artichokes drenched in rich veloute, roast wood pigeon with hazelnuts and crisp ham. These rotate among other indulgent dishes that would have the steamed veg and sushi eating sort of spa-goers running in horror.

IN CROWD On race days at the York Racecourse the likes of Ricky Gervais and Robbie Williams have been known to come in for a rubdown, though one suspects that they chose the mildly shabby spa based on proximity alone. You’re more likely to see mums on mini-breaks spa-ing it up while their hubbies read the paper at the hotel across the road.

WALLET WATCH You’ll pay the fairly standard rate of approximately a pound a minute for most of the treatments (for example a half hour scalp massage is £30, an hour of “aromamassage” is £55).

NEED TO KNOW Middlethorpe Hall Hotel, restaurant and spa, Bishopthorpe Road York YO23 2GB (01904 641241;
www.middlethorpe.com)

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