Bowling Harbour

BYRE at Bowling sits on the edge of Bowling Basin, where Scotland's oldest canal meets the River Clyde. The sauna is wood-fired and slow to build, the way it should be. Beside it there is a cold plunge and a run of canal-side decking for the minutes between rounds, with the basin and its moored boats in front of you and indoor changing a few steps away.

Sessions are one hour. Move between the heat and the cold at your own pace, with no instructor and no set routine. Most people take two or three rounds: ten to fifteen minutes in the sauna, a short plunge, then fresh air on the deck before going again. Book a single seat and share the sauna with a small group of up to six, or take the whole sauna privately for your own group.

Next to the sauna stands The Customs House. Built in 1800 to record the whisky, sugar, tobacco, timber and tea that passed through Bowling Harbour, it fell quiet when the canal closed in 1963 and has since been restored as a seven-room canal-side hotel, each room named for a cargo that once came through the harbour. Hotel guests can add a sauna session to their stay. Everyone else books directly on this page.

New on the canal is The Customs House's first houseboat, moored on the canal at the hotel with more to come. It sleeps four, with a double bedroom, a lounge, a kitchenette and its own deck on the water. If you want to make more of a visit than an hour, a night on the boat or in the hotel with a sauna session either side is a good way to do it.

Bowling is around twenty minutes from Glasgow city centre and fifteen from the airport, with free parking on site and Bowling station a short walk away. The canal towpath runs past the door, east towards Glasgow and west to the Clyde, so it is an easy place to reach by bike or on foot before a session.