Poor man’s pharmacy, shvitz, bathhouse, sweat lodge, hammam, sauna. All around the world, sweat bathing has been fundamental to human culture. As Emma O’Kelly, author of Wild Sauna, explains, “The Finns called it the Poor Man’s Pharmacy; babies were born in the steam; cuppers and blood letters would treat the sick; and here was where the dead were prepared for burial.”

Sweat bathing is an ancient practice with deep roots. There are many living traditions, some of which are recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. Britain, too, has its own bathing past: quiet, fragmented, often forgotten. But today, a vibrant new culture is emerging. And as with all cultural movements, to understand where we’re going, we first look to where we’ve been.

3000 to 6000 years ago

There is growing evidence that prehistoric Britain had its own sweat-bathing traditions. Archaeologists uncovered the remains of what may have been Bronze Age saunas on the Orkney Islands, with stone structures near water sources that showed signs of fire heating and controlled ventilation. At Marden Henge, near Stonehenge, excavations revealed a “sweat lodge” style structure: a pit, a hearth, and evidence of rapid heating and cooling—hallmarks of ancient sauna practice.

These discoveries push back the timeline of British bathing culture significantly. Before the Romans, before the Celts—even before written language—there was sweat.

This giant circular henge could be Yorkshire’s first sauna. Credit: East Riding Archaeology

2000 years ago

When the Romans arrived in 43 AD, they found an island already familiar with the idea of sacred water. In Bath (Aquae Sulis), they built great Thermae complexes, blending Roman engineering with native spirituality. Here, natural hot springs were transformed into elaborate bathing sanctuaries, where locals worshipped Sulis Minerva—a fusion of the Roman goddess Minerva and the Celtic deity Sulis.

Among the heated rooms was the laconicum, a hot, dry chamber similar to today’s sauna. Heated by a hypocaust system, these rooms reached up to 50°C and were used to sweat, cleanse, and sometimes heal. Though the Roman bathhouse was more public and ritualised than earlier traditions, it shared many fundamentals: heat, purification, and communal care.

View of the main pool (“Great Bath”) of the Roman spa fed by the sacred spring, Bath, England, constructed from the 1st to 5th centuries C.E. Credit: Diego Delso

200 years ago

Fast forward to the 1800s and the Victorian era: a time of propriety, industrial steam, and repressed skin. Yet, interestingly, the age of modesty saw a revival of public bathing culture, inspired by both Roman and Ottoman traditions. Turkish baths, based on Islamic hammams, popped up across the UK. Unlike their steam-filled Eastern cousins, these used dry heat and a series of increasingly hot rooms, culminating in a plunge pool and a scrub down.

These weren’t spas in the modern sense, they were civic institutions. Places for labourers and lords alike. Sweating was medicinal, social, and spiritual. Though heavily gendered and often classed, they still carried the idea: shared heat, shared humanity.

A Turkish bath, in an engraving by M. J. Starling, also after Thomas Allom.

100 years ago

At the turn of the 20th century, new arrivals brought their own bathing customs. Jewish immigrants fleeing Eastern Europe set up “Russian Vapour Baths” on Brick Lane. Likely influenced by the banya, these places were humid, steamy sanctuaries—a way to maintain health, connection, and cultural identity in a foreign land.

This sign was used to advertise the Russian Vapour Baths in Brick Lane. Credit: Jewish Museum London.

80 years ago

In 1939, the first recorded Finnish sauna in the UK was built at Nonington College in Kent. Commissioned by the Serlachius family (industrialists from Finland), this was an intentional act of cultural diplomacy: a wood-fired gift of steam to the British Isles. Whilst this building survives, it’s not longer used as a sauna.

Finnish Olympic Sauna Bath, Aylesford, Kent – Toivo Jäntti (1948). Pictured in 2023. Credit: Wendy Liu / British Sauna Society

70 years ago

In the years following WWII, sauna culture began to make quiet inroads. A Finnish sauna was installed for the 1948 London Olympics—with the Society’s involvement—manufactured by Puutalo in Finland and set up at Eastway Baths. Later, in the 1950s and 60s, Finnish expats set up saunas in London’s Kensington (Abingdon Road) and Rotherhithe (Finnish Seamen’s Mission).

The sauna was granted Grade II-listed status. Credit: PA Media and Grace O'Hare

50 years ago

By the 1970s, a public Finnish sauna opened in Birmingham, and in 1977, New Docklands Steam Baths was founded. The immigrant community, particularly from Eastern Europe, petitioned for a traditional banya to be added. These were saunas with stories: family-run, self-built, deeply social.

2010s – The sauna renaissance begins

2011 saw the debut of Warmth, a portable sauna by artist Bethany Wells, at the Royal College of Art. This marked a shift: saunas as creative interventions. In 2012, Something & Son built a temporary bathhouse in Barking for the London Olympics. A year later, Banya No.1 opened in Hoxton, bringing a fully authentic Russian banya to East London.

These years laid the groundwork for what would become a renaissance—part design movement, part social experiment, part grassroots revival.

The first Russian Banya to reintroduce traditional steam baths in London since the closure of Jewish baths during World War II. Credit: Banya No.1

The birth of the British Sauna Society

Between 2014 and 2018, a few sauna-loving Brits and expats gathered together at events including the International Sauna Congress in Swedish Lapland. Out of that steam, the British Sauna Society (BSS) was born—not as a company or commercial enterprise, but as a fellowship. A cultural body rooted in the idea that in the sauna, everyone is equal. There are no titles, no suits, no roles. Just heat, humanity, and honest conversation.

The BSS structure reflects that ethos. There are Directors who take care of the doing (strategy, projects, governance), and a Fellowship that holds the being (culture, care, spirit). A third arm, likely a Patron or President, will eventually embody its diplomatic and public-facing role.

Key moments in the BSS timeline:

2015 – The first Virtual Steam online gathering, organised by Scotsman Andrew Paterson from his home in Helsinki
2017 – First BSS meetup at James Franklin’s garden sauna in Northamptonshire. That winter, a Rooftop Sauna popped up at Southbank Centre, drawing new faces to the culture. The BSS recruited sauna hosts for this month-long pop-up in the rooftop garden of Queen Elizabeth Hall
2017-2018 Rooftop Sauna at Southbank Centre
2018 – Warmth Brighton, a pop-up sauna at Brighton Fringe, led to the founding of Beach Box Sauna—a project that would help cement Brighton as a modern sweat-bathing hub
2020 – A formative meeting in Wimbledon brought together key sauna community members: Wendy Liu, Mika Meskanen, Nik Torrens, Bethany Wells, Mine Erisir, Katie Bracher, Victoria Maddox, James Franklin, Oguguo Igwe, Kimmo Raitio, Olivia Glasser, and Jake and Max Newport. These figures would become early stewards of the society
2021 – The BSS formalised itself with a written constitution. That year also saw the launch of the Community Sauna Baths crowdfunding campaign and a showcase at the London Festival of Architecture
2022 – The 1948 Olympic Sauna story was retold through an exhibition at Eastway Baths
2023 – The first UK Aufguss Championships and participation in Aufguss World Championships took place
2023–2024 – Film screenings (Perfect Sweat x Sauna Aid) and the inaugural UK & Ireland Sauna Summit helped bring the wider public into the fold

Some of the BSS team got together at our first-ever Sauna Summit in 2024. Credit: Olivia-GS Photography / BSS

Rediscovering ourselves in the löyly

The sauna, as most people know it today, is rooted in Finno-Ugric cultures—Finnish and Estonian in particular. But Britain has long had its own parallel thread. From ancient Gaelic sweat houses in Ireland and Scotland to Roman bathhouses and Victorian Turkish baths, this island has always turned to steam for care, community, and contemplation.

Yes, there were interruptions: plague bans in the 16th century, Victorian prudery, and then the rise of the private bathroom. But even when public bathing was taboo, the idea never disappeared. It lingered in the architecture, in the stories, in the bones of old bathhouses.

Now, it’s back—and not as a nostalgic copy-paste of other cultures, but as something fresh and local. Saunas are appearing where we need them most: at the edges of the sea, in the cracks of the city, in gardens, on farms, in disused shipping containers and artist residencies.

The future of British sauna

This isn’t a trend, it’s a return. And it’s being shaped by a new kind of pioneer: artists, architects, climate activists, therapists, and craftspeople. People like Mika Meskanen and Mikkel Aaland who’ve spent decades nurturing the culture. People like you and me, who step into the heat and realise something important: that we are not machines. We are porous, soft, emotional animals who need rest, connection, and warmth.

And so, the British sauna story continues—not as a borrowed ritual, but as a living, breathing one. Built in back gardens and on windswept beaches, fuelled by fire and friendship. Ancient and entirely new.

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The history of British bathing culture and the rise of the British Sauna Society