Landmark London Hotel's Health Club and Spa

Take a dip at the spa at the Landmark London Hotel

Landmark London Hotel

In the busy streets surrounding Marylebone station, autumn leaves are whisked up in the evening rush as Marylebone Road heaves with taxis and buses. Standing regally beside the mayhem, the stately Landmark Hotel looks on. Inside this towering red-brick Victorian building is a grand and award-winning hotel, where well-dressed guests treat themselves to luxurious suites, fine dining and a deliciously indulgent afternoon tea.

Delve into luxury at the Landmark London Hotel
Landmark London Hotel

Tucked underneath the hotel, the Landmark offers even more decadent pleasures, this time minus the calories, at its modern Health Club and Spa.

This high-tech area is frequented by frazzled business folk and high-end holidaymakers alike. Active types come to make use of the well-equipped gym, which is packed with state-of-the-art equipment, with swanky sounding “integrated personal audiovisual system” (a nifty gadget that allows guests their own choice of entertainment), and formidable personal trainers are on hand to devise personal fitness programmes and generally pep up morale.

For a London spa, the 15m (49ft) swimming pool is a real attribute, even when just admiring it from a seat in the bubbling poolside whirlpool. A gentler option to a cheek-reddening sauna, the Klafs Sanarium, uses light, soft music and warmth to create a soothing chamber in which to truly zone out. Elsewhere, monsoon showers are on hand for an invigorating blast, and both the male and female changing rooms boast their own steam room. Treatment-wise, Landmark offers a range of face and body regimes, from an intriguing Four-Hand Massage, to the Deluxe Facial with Firming Eye Treatment.

Recent additions to the menu are a new range of VOYA seaweed-based treatments to nourish winter bodies. Having been used in beauty regimes for centuries, seaweed is thought by many to have anti-aging and moisturising properties, and the power to improve the quality of skin. Treatments range from a 45-minute wrinkle banishing, face plumping Facial Experience (£50), which uses seaweed as a facemask, to an exfoliating Herbal Bag Massage (£90), where soaked warm bags of herbs and seaweed are massaged over the body.

My Seaweed Oil Massage (£80), a 60-minute massage using nourishing seaweed oil, claimed to rid my body of tensions and improve circulation, and as I lay, facedown, on the treatment bed, any reservations I may have had of smelling like a salty beach on a hot summer’s day vanished as the aroma of the light and sweetly scented oil filled the room. The massage also delivered what it promised on the relaxation front, as I came away feeling less tense and sore muscles had been soothed.

Relax at the Landmark's spa
Landmark London Hotel

A shame, then, that it became swiftly clear that the Landmark spa suffers from that perpetual London problem of lack of space. Running along right outside my little treatment room was the path between reception and the pool, and during my hour’s massage I heard, full volume, several conversations from people walking past. There is no point in atmospheric music tinkling on quietly in the background if every so often it is punctuated by someone loudly debating whether to head for the whirlpool or relaxation room.

Also, the light in the treatment room was too bright. To drift off into a state of zombified relaxation was impossible. Following the massage, however, a short walk took me to the escapism I had been craving, in the Relaxation Room. Candle lit and tranquil, this is where I wish I’d had my massage.

All in all Landmark offers a lovely spa, and if they can dim the lights and put up a ‘Shhh quiet’ sign or two, their first class facilities and excellent service will really start competing with London’s other top hotel spas.

Landmark Spa & Health Club, Landmark London Hotel
222 Marylebone Road
London NW1 6JQ
Tel: (020) 7631 8080.
www.landmarkspa.com