Urban Sauna Liverpool Opens 14 November: £999 a Year

Liverpool gets a large outdoor sauna garden next month, the lead story this week. A family has pitched a wood-fired sauna on the beach at Flamborough’s North Landing, London’s biggest community sauna operator is eyeing a lakeside plot on the edge of Epping Forest, and a Finnish study has measured what one sauna session does to your white blood cells.

The Urban Sauna opens in Anfield on 14 November

The Urban Sauna will open on Saturday 14 November on the Cherry Lane site in Anfield, Liverpool, as part of a 24,000 sq ft wellness and commercial hub run by the regeneration company Seven Group, the Liverpool Echo reported on 29 October. The site, which the paper describes as a former neglected dumping ground, will have two Scandinavian log-burning saunas for up to 16 people each, two 10-person hot tubs, a six-person ice bath, two single-person ice baths and showers.

It will open seven days a week, 7am to 9pm, with a limited number of places per session. Annual membership is £999 for unlimited use, with an introductory price of £497 for the first 100 applicants; single and block bookings and private hire will also be available, though the Echo gave no price for a single session. The paper says 20 jobs will be created on the site.

£999 a year is about £19 a week, so membership only pays if you will really go every week or more. Our guide to sauna and cold plunge explains how to structure a hot and cold session, and how long to stay in a sauna covers the timings for beginners. Report at the Liverpool Echo.

A wood-fired beach sauna at Flamborough’s North Landing, £12 a session

ROE Wild Saunas has set up on the sand at North Landing, Flamborough, at the foot of the old lifeboat station slipway, The Scarborough News reported on 29 October. It is run by Sam and Belle, whose family still launch fishing boats from the beach. For now the sauna is a wood-fired PortaSauna tent pitched on the sand, with a custom-built timber sauna planned for the site later.

A shared session costs £12 for 55 minutes, with up to seven seats, and private hire for up to 10 people starts at £70. It aims to open most weekends, depending on weather and sea conditions, so check the online timetable before you travel. There are no lifeguards, and anyone going into the sea does so at their own risk. If you plan a sea dip between rounds, our guide to sauna and cold plunge covers the safety basics, and wood-fired versus electric saunas explains why so many beach operators burn logs. Report at The Scarborough News.

Community Sauna Baths eyes Highams Park Lake

Community Sauna Baths, which runs social saunas in Hackney Wick, Walthamstow and elsewhere in London, wants to open a lakeside sauna at Highams Park Lake, on the edge of Epping Forest, My London reported on 25 October. The plot held a boathouse for 50 years until it burned down in September 2025; the City of London Corporation, which owns it, put the site out to tender in March.

The company and its infrastructure partner, Kindling Sauna, presented the idea to the Highams Park Planning Group on 8 October. No planning application has been submitted yet; the current design holds about 30 people at a time, and a public consultation is open. Last week we reported the same operator’s application for a four-sauna site in Crystal Palace Park. For what is open in the capital now, see the best saunas in London. Report at My London.

One sauna session briefly floods the blood with white cells, a Finnish study finds

Researchers at the University of Turku and the University of Eastern Finland put 51 adults, average age 50, through a 30-minute sauna session with a brief cold shower halfway through. Every type of circulating white blood cell they measured rose, including neutrophils and lymphocytes, and counts were back to normal within 30 minutes of finishing, ScienceDaily reported on 27 October. Average cytokine levels barely changed, although some moved in step with how much body temperature rose. The study is published in the journal Temperature.

The researchers think the heat moves immune cells out of tissues and into circulation for a while, much as exercise does. They are clear about the limits: this was one session, the effect was short-lived, the cold shower was part of the routine, and the study does not show that saunas make you less likely to get ill. Our pages on whether a sauna is good for a cold and the evidence on sauna benefits put it in context. Report at ScienceDaily.