Spa@the Stables

We’ve just put the finishing touches to our new indoor pool, gym and spa, and they more than live up to the glamour of the rest of Bruern.

The pool area dazzles with light. A white painted wooden ceiling rises to a huge glass lantern roof which runs the length of the pool. Swimming on your back in the 28degrees water you can admire the clouds scudding past; turn your head, and there’s a south facing wall of glass period French doors, which open onto the sandstone terrace and Italianate garden.

The pool, 12 X 5m and 1.2m deep, is the pale tender green of shallow waves on a sandy tropical beach. It is tiled in the same rough cast, beige limestone-look-alike ceramic as the pool surround, which is kept warm by under flooring heating. Groups of cushioned wicker chairs and some low-slung divans make it an inviting place to watch the swimmers and admire the garden from. In summer, there are tables, chairs and parasols on the terrace as well.

The garden is lovely to look at summer and winter alike. The high Yew hedge, the pergola, low box edging and tall box topiary and copies of 18th Century statues give it form and definition even in winter, and throughout the rest of the year a succession of scented hyacinths, black and white tulips, fragrant lilies and heliotrope and other tender perennials make it a feast for the senses. The Cotswold stone wall to the left and the pergola to the right tumble with vines and roses: at the end, your eye is drawn to a Greek temple.

There’s nothing 18th Century about the air conditioned gym. It is cutting edge. As well as the weights, the treadmill, cross-trainer, exercise bike and personal gym, there is that newest of the new high tech wonder, the Power Plate. Madonna is rumoured to tone and hone with it; on its vibrating platform you can get the benefit of an hour’s exercise in only ten minutes. Great for bones and muscles, it is widely used for healing sports injuries, the principle was discovered in the USSR and enabled Russian astronauts to stay in space for nearly three times as long as the Americans.

One of the gym walls is mirrored and there’s a big plasma TV screen on another.