The Gainsborough Bath Spa

Bath was founded on hot springs, yet for centuries visitors could look at the waters far more easily than get into them. The Gainsborough changed that. Occupying two listed Georgian buildings—one a former hospital named after the painter Thomas Gainsborough—a minute from the Roman Baths, it is the only hotel in Britain with its own tap into the city's natural thermal springs.

The Spa Village at its heart is the reason to book: a columned, sky-lit bathing hall where three pools of graduated temperature draw genuinely thermal mineral water, ringed by saunas, steam rooms and an ice alcove, with treatments influenced by European bathing traditions. Hotel guests get access built into the stay, which transforms the economics against booking the city's public thermal spa separately.

Above the baths, interiors by champions of quiet luxury favour soft greys, marble and Romanesque mosaic nods to the site's archaeology—Roman remains were found during construction and a mosaic is preserved in the spa. Dan Moon's restaurant handles modern British dining, and the abbey, theatre and station are all within a few hundred metres. Guests wanting Georgian romance may prefer the crescents above town; guests who came for the waters themselves should stay nowhere else.