If you'd lost a spa, the first place you'd look would probably not be on the slip road off the A1 near Darlington. Approaching the Garage in a taxi, the driver helpfully pointed out all the places people have crashed – all the black spots, broken railings, the road which gets closed off when the rain's particularly bad, the difficult corner littered with plastic – and he pointed up at the clouds and predicted weather.
It didn't feel like the place for a spa, nor the time either – despite this being the season when detoxing is encouraged, January one long, long hangover. In fact, the spa was only two-thirds built. Construction had been delayed by the discovery of a Roman wall somewhere below the treatment rooms (a team of archeologists are due to visit later in the year), so plans were changed, and builders milled politely past the hot tub, eyes averted.
But the Garage spa revels in its oddness. It thinks of itself as "quirky". Originally a refuelling and repairing point for Britain's first cars, driving the long road between London and Scotland, its branding – the "Car Wash shower experience", "Paint Shop" nail bar, bespoke range of locally sourced products, and treatment menu disguised as a road map – reinforces the building's roots.
The Garage, built in the 19th century so travellers would stay longer than a single night at the hotel, is now a spa, updated for the same reason. Those passing through en route to Durham or spending the night at the attached Morritt hotel are encouraged to stay a while. To refuel, repair, to sit quietly in the relaxation room as the lights change from pink to blue. It is a room that has a wall made of salt. Roughly cut blocks of it like milky glass, through which air is pumped. And you just sit there in the dim, rosy light. They say the salt particles can soothe respiratory and skin conditions. Lick your lips you can taste it.
Next door to the salt room, three barrel-like hot tubs sit side by side, one almost boiling and fizzing furiously, one icy cold. The changing rooms are heaven-like – white-tiled individual shower rooms decorated in shades of London members-club chic. And if you dash from the steam room, past the fire pit, down through the rain, you find the sauna in a little wooden caravan outside – the UK's first Shepherd's Hut "log-burning" sauna. From here you can almost see the woods, where the River Greta joins the Tees at the Meeting of the Waters, a rocky crossroads that is rawly romantic. If you throw a stick from the bridge it sweeps through one river, bouncing across the wide flat stones, the surprisingly clear white water, and into another, out of sight into the shade of trees.
The "Body Shop" treatments appeal to those wanting to wash away the countryside from their skin and hair – I tried the scrub and polish, which required partial nudity and the desire to be cleaned of the afternoon's activities. All the walking through fields without a clear path, all the creeping carefully past bulls and trying to remember the rules when a bull approaches – don't walk behind it? Don't wear red? All the clambering over stiles and standing at the top of hills, looking down at the green and grey grass and water. All the borrowing of wellies from the hotel and tramping through mud, aching the next day in your thighs.
I lay for a while in the dry float room. You lower yourself into a rubber waterbed, and beneath the sheet, warm water surrounds you – you feel weightless, and sleepy. And as you feel yourself drift away in this dark room, lit only by a single point of blue, you have the sensation of being unhuman. Which is surprisingly relaxing. Pressure-free.
The hotel, an inn since the 17th century, is staffed by sweet young women and teeming with men. I thought it was a stag night, but no, they're here for the grouse. Their shooting party leaves the next day. The Dickens bar (so called because he passed through here when researching Nicholas Nickleby) is fire lit and beautiful, alive with a Dickens mural painted over 11 days in the 1940s, and full of old guys talking about girls. At nine the next morning they collect outside in their plus fours and caps, braying quietly and looking up at the sky.
The Garage spa has been opened partly for their wives, who, next time, will hopefully join them at the hotel and steam away the weekend while the men go killing. And partly for them: men who wouldn't normally set foot in a spa but who might try this one because of its masculine branding – its "Unleaded shampoo", its "Tune Up treatments". It's an ultra-modern boutique spa on a busy ancient road, a herb-scented relaxation space themed around broken cars. Sitting alone in the sauna, the sound of traffic muffled by rain, it makes perfect sense.
Essentials
The Garage Spa, Greta Bridge, near Barnard Castle, County Durham (01833 863 100; thegaragespa.co.uk) has day spa packages starting at £140
