Greenwoods Hotel, Spa and Retreat, Ingatestone - 4 bubbles

A 17th-century manor house with modern spa and leisure facilities, Greenwoods Hotel, Spa and Retreat played host to Sedate Spy and her daughter. They found an impressive range of Decléor and La Sultane De Saba spa treatments, and a tranquil environment to relax in. Set in the Essex countryside but relatively close to London, Greenwoods proved a good location for a mother-and-daughter spa break in the South East.

To leave a reader review for this spa, please click on "have your say" below

"We visited Greenwoods in August last month on an 'Afternoon Tea & Spa evening' deal. The staff were ok, we didn't have change for the locker & every member of staff in the reception & bar said that they had no access to cash, in the end a helpful girl on the spa reception lent us £1 of her own! The afternoon tea was great, although we were left alone for half an hour before it arrived & weren't even offered drinks in this time. But we were greatly disappointed with the 'spa'. We went on a Monday afternoon & it was packed, it simply consisted of a sauna, steamroom & jacuzzi next to the pool, but you literally had to queue to get into each one. We were there an hour & then gave up & went home, which was a real shame. "

"For my Mum's birthday, I booked the 2for1 offer 2 nights stay (£380, inc b/fast, dinner, 2 mini treatments)
We were greeted by nice staff and our room was nice & as expected. The gym is small, but has some decent equipment. The swimming pool was nice but the loungers were not exactly clean, also a shortage of towels. It was the bank holiday, so thought it to be busy, but the pool area was too crowded (& noisy). The stream room was decent enough, but the sauna was not hot enough, which was the consensus of most of the guests, I did ask whether the temp could be increased but was told this wasn't possible. The mini back massage was nice, but the mini facial was a joke, I do more when I remove my makeup! I booked us full body massage with facial and scalp, mine was great, but my Mum's said hers was ok, but they didn't do a facial so overall not happy.
The environment is lovely, food average.
I would't have been impressed if it wasn't on offer & I'm not likely to go back anytime soon"

"I went to the Greenwoods hotel and spa for a day visit with my husband.
On arrival, the reception staff member was frosty and couldn't even muster a smile. This was a shame, but only to be expected after the previous review that we had read. Every question that we asked was met with a sigh and a querying look as though we ought to know everything already.
I headed off for a Pilates class, which was well run and enjoyable – probably the highlight of the day. My husband used the gym, which he said was adequately equipped but a little too small.
Lunch was adequate bearing in mind that it was included in the price, but it is not haute cuisine so don't go with big expectations. It is a standard free lunch. To their credit, the restaurant staff were attentive and much friendlier than their colleagues on reception.
Heading to the spa after lunch, I was given a dark blue towel and a heavy, XL white robe, both of which had a really unpleasant chemical smell. Unfolding the robe in the changing room, I saw that it had a grease-stained collar and decided against wearing it. The towel and robe were clearly very old and well past their prime. Fortunately, we had brought our own towels so we were not obliged to use those provided. I noticed that most of the other guests had the same idea of bringing their own towel and using the spa towels to stand on whilst getting changed. I was disappointed about the robe; it would have been nice to relax in a soft, plush robe as I had anticipated. The one size fits all (XL) policy isn't great either- if I had worn the robe it would have dragged along the floor and been far too big around me – not exactly in keeping with feeling glamorous and pampered!
On going into the pool area, I was shocked to see how dilapidated and dirty the loungers were. There was not a single one that I would have considered sitting on. Most were dark blue and marked with what looked like talcum powder (or mould???) and were visibly dirty. Others were cream coloured and had grease patches where other guests' heads had been that were visible from the other end of the pool. This really led me to question the cleanliness of the whole spa. The loungers are packed together around both edges of the pool, not spaced out as per the apparently tranquil scene pictured on the website.
The 'invigorating Monsoon shower' was only working intermittently and it was only on looking up to see why it was not working that I saw that the shower heads were encrusted with thick yellow limescale. This didn't exactly increase my satisfaction with the cleanliness standards. After this, I just wanted to get out of the spa altogether.
Both of us had booked the Greenwoods full body massage. I had no pre-chat with my therapist, such as where I would like her to focus or avoid. She launched into the massage with her choice of what was apparently a bog-standard oil which was totally unfragranced. On the plus-side, the treatment rooms were clean and relaxing, and the massage itself was good, although I was given no aftercare advice by the therapist. My husband had a strongly perfumed oil for his massage which he was also given no option about either; clearly there is no defined practice at the spa and you take pot luck as to the choices of your therapist, rather than coming down to any level of choice on the part of the customer.
Perhaps the worst thing about the whole day was the incessant music that plays throughout the building. Clearly something that the hotel have purchased to add what they might think is a touch of class, the jazz trumpet repeats over and over and over again, with the same 7-note theme playing in almost every room of the whole building. It even follows you into the changing room, so it really feels that there is no escape from it. We ended up leaving early, as soon as our massages were over, as there was nowhere that the awful music wasn't playing and we just couldn't bear hearing it any longer.
Overall, the day was a big disappointment and very expensive for what we actually experienced. Given that we didn't fancy relaxing on the filthy loungers, we were limited as to the activities that we could undertake and ended up waiting around for our treatment and looking forward to going home."