The Spa at The Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland
Julie Register visited this Resort Spa in Perthshire, Scotland in May 2002

The Resort

*According to our driver from Turnberry in Ayrshire to Gleneagles in Perthshire, the name Gleneagles, is Gaelic: Glen=valley in the highlands + Eagles for churches. So it means high valley of churches. Like Turnberry, Gleneagles was built by the railroad in conjunction with a golf course. It is still on an active rail line (6-8 hrs by train from London with changes). The golf course opened in 1918, the resort in 1924, the leisure club with pool in 1982 and the spa in 1991 (remodeled in 2000). In the Fall of 2002, The Braid House addition will open adding 59 bedrooms to the current 216. The hotel is grand and I actually got "lost" a few times. With over a mile of twisting, turning corridors split among four floors getting "lost" may not be that unusual. As I entered the hotel, I could easily find the bar to the right of the lobby and The Strathearn Restaurant around to the right and down the hall, but heading left towards the Club and Spa was more challenging for me. Getting there wasn't difficult...a few turns, turn right in the Shopping Arcade, through the glass walkway connecting the hotel to the Club and Spa (most convenient for days with less-than-ideal weather) and I was there. It was the return trip that baffled me every time. At least twice, I gave up and went through an outside door near the Shopping Arcade and walked around to the front entrance. I could have easily asked for directions from someone in one of the shops, but it became a personal challenge to do it on my own. I finally got my bearings just before I left.

The Club and Spa

After walking through the glass walkway under arching Chestnut Vines, you come to a reception area for The Club (£2.7 million renovation in 1997) where you can exchange your room key for a locker key. Just past this reception desk to the right is the large pool area with cool lap pool, warmer lagoon-shaped swimming pool, whirlpools, and connecting outdoor hot pool. There is also a quiet inhalation room, sauna and Turkish bath. Upstairs is a gym, fitness studio and snooker room. Behind the desk and slightly to the right is The Club Restaurant, a family-oriented casual place to eat that offers lighter cuisine and some healthy choices such as Cassata of Griddled Vegetables and Tomato Vinaigrette and Brochette of Salmon and Monkfish on Lemon Couscous. Continuing down the corridor to the right is The Spa.

The decor in the spa was updated when it was remodeled in November 2000. A treatment room was added at that time. Currently, there are separate men's and women's locker rooms with their own steam rooms and saunas, a coed steam and sauna, 10 treatment rooms (three have private showers), one hydrotherapy treatment room, and a quiet relaxation room for after treatments. According to Leisure Manager, Claire Birchall, the spa will be expanding to 16 rooms in 2004. It will be using a local architect and interior designer for the design.

It's worth noting that parents can leave young children in the playroom for up to 2 hours/day for free - just enough time to have a great spa treatment!

The Spa treatment menu was being redesigned at the time of my visit and many of the selections were no longer available. The "old" menu offered a wide selection of body treatments, facials, hands and feet treatments, nail care, waxing, and hair services. Particularly nice were treatments identified specifically for teenagers (E'SPA Facial, E'SPA Rebalancing Facial, All Hand and Foot Treatments, General Beauty excluding Electrolysis, Back Massage and Wraps, and Flight Reviver Self Tan) and men (The Lairds Remedy, The Clansman Facial, Gentlemen's Stress Curative, Executive Tension Release, Thai Therapy, Gentlemen's Hand and Nail Treatment, and Golfers Tonic). I selected an E'SPA treatment (I personally love E'SPA products!). However, the Celtic Life Rituals treatments sounded intriguing - something I'll have to try next time (if they are still offered!):

"Around 80AD, the Romans built a defensive frontier of forts and towers along the Gask Ridge, some 10 miles north of Gleneagles. When they arrived, they would have brought with them their own spa traditions, based on baths and massage. At The Spa at Gleneagles, we have adopted these Roman practices and interwoven them with ancient Celtic rituals to create cleansing and purifying treatments for use today. Choose the full Life Ritual or use specific elements of it: Purification, Rebirth or Restoration. We suggest that you take a steam or sauna prior to the treatments, in much the same way that the Romans would use a laconium, or hot spa bath, to prepare themselves prior to the cleansing process."

The Celtic Life Ritual
Stage 1: Cleansing - using pure sea salt and natural oils, your skin is exfoliated to remove all dead skin cells, leaving it prepared and ready to receive the next stage.
Stage 2: Detoxifying - luxuriate in a seaweed hydrobath, rich in minerals and vitamins that are absorbed by the body to purify and tone.
Stage 3: Relaxing - the treatment is continued with a back, neck and shoulder massage using oils to further relax the muscles and treat the skin.
Stage 4: Remineralising - enveloped in mineralised mud, your body naturally replenishes the essential minerals of which it may have lower than normal levels.
Purification
Stage 1: Cleansing - using pure sea salt and natural oils, your skin is exfoliated to remove all dead skin cells, leaving it prepared and ready to receive the next stage.
Stage 2: Detoxifying - luxuriate in a seaweed hydrobath, rich in minerals and vitamins that are absorbed by the body to purify and tone.
Rebirth
Stage 1: Cleansing - using pure sea salt and natural oils, your skin is exfoliated to remove all dead skin cells, leaving it prepared and ready to receive the next stage.
Stage 2: Remineralising - enveloped in mineralised mud, your body naturally replenishes the essential minerals of which it may have lower than normal levels.
Restoration
Stage 1: Cleansing - using pure sea salt and natural oils, your skin is exfoliated to remove all dead skin cells, leaving it prepared and ready to receive the next stage.
Stage 2: Relaxing - the treatment is concluded with a back, neck and shoulder massage using oils to further relax the muscles and treat the skin.

It will be interesting to see what the new treatment menu offers.

As I mentioned earlier, I had an E'SPA treatment - a full-body, face and scalp aromatherapy massage with Emma. She had me choose which scent I preferred by putting samples on the back of each hand. I chose Energizing Oil containing essential oils of frankincense and citrus. She verified that it would be appropriate for the activities I had lined up for the rest of the day. The massage was lovely. I immediately zoned out and it was over before I knew it. Emma then escorted me to the relaxation lounge where I stretched out on a lounge chair for quite a while before getting up to get dressed.

Outdoor Leisure Activities

*Gleneagles is family friendly. There are lots of things for "young VIPs" to do - not least of which for kids 6 years and older is drive 1/4-size land rovers through a off-road course and have their own pony-for-a-day at the Equestrian Center. For older children and adults, there is golf, the golf academy, croquet, all-weather tennis, archery, falconry, Argo driving, off-road driving, the equestrian center (which offers a weekly yoga class for riders to help improve posture, breathing, and muscle tone), shooting, skeet, fishing, bike riding, and walking on marked footpaths around the golf courses and and gardens of Gleneagles estate.

I tried my hand at falconry and driving an Argo. I had my reservations about handling a falcon at first (as my photo shows), but it was quite fun and I would have liked to have done more. The Argo is an all-terrain, all-weather, semi-amphibious vehicle. They are used to manage Highland estates in Scotland, allowing landowners to reach steep, rocky or swampy areas that are otherwise inaccessible. At Gleneagles, teenagers and adults can learn to operate these strange, eight-wheel-drive vehicles on land and in water on a challenging course. My advice is to leave your driving intuition behind. It is unlike anything I have driven - acceleration and braking is done with two tillers. Just listen to your instructor and pay close attention!

More information

The Gleneagles Hotel is a member of Connoisseurs Scotland, an elite collection of Scotland's finest properties and travel experiences. Featuring a small number of luxury hotels, each with a quality and character of its own, set in unique locations throughout Scotland. In addition to the hotels there is the Royal Scotsman, an exclusive train which revives the romance and elegance of times past. There is also a ship, The Hebridean Princess, that can transport guests to a hidden Scotland in total luxury.

Gorse is a thorny plant with a faint coconut scent that grows wild and in abundance in the coast of Scotland. It iis used in one of the original Bach Flower Remedies. It is a restorative remedy that helps lift dark and depressive personalities into a brighter and lighter experience. Good for anyone at times when they feel life is weighing them down. Positive Qualities include optimism, hope, perseverance, endurance, and illumination.
Bell Heather, another plant found in abundance in Scotland, is another original Bach Flower Remedy. This flower remedy is beneficial to those who are consumed with self interests, self indulgence, or overly concerned with one's own problems. It helps one to move away from their unbalanced inward focus. It offers a better perspective, so that a person can learn to use their own suffering as a resource well that can be drawn from to offer compassion and caring to others. Positive qualities include, selflessness, self-discipline, inner calm, and compassion for others.
Other species native to Scotland used in Bach Flower Remedy production include apple, broom, daisy, elder, harebell, hazel, navelwort, lady's mantle, mallow, ragged robin, Scots pine, Scottish primrose, sea pink, sea rocket, silverweed, snowdrop, spotted orchid, stonecrop, thistle, valerian, watercress, wild pansy and willowherb.1
Additionally, some plant species used in aromatherapy are native to Scotland e.g. yarrow, wild celery, mugwort, borage, juniper, corn mint, and valerian.1
With all the current interest in creating spa treatments using indigenous plants, resources and traditions, it is surprising that these plants have not found their way into the spa treatment menus in Scotland.
1"FLORA CELTICA: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SCOTTISH PLANTS," Chapter 3 Medicinal and aromatic plants by William Milliken and Sam Bridgewater, Edinburgh Development Consultants, and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh