UK Celebrities Who Love Saunas

Inside Britain's A-List Sauna Obsession

Saunas have quietly become one of the most fashionable additions to a British celebrity's home — right up there with a home cinema or a wine cellar. Over the past few years, a wave of well-known UK names have installed handcrafted sauna cabins in their gardens, championed wood-fired "sauna ceremony" rituals, or simply been spotted enjoying the heat on Instagram. Below is a real, source-based look at the famous Brits who sauna, what they actually own, and why they do it.

David Beckham: The Man Who Started the UK Celebrity Sauna Craze

No one has done more to popularise home saunas among British celebrities than David Beckham. In December 2018, the former England captain installed an igloo-shaped sauna at his and Victoria Beckham's Cotswolds estate in Great Tew, Oxfordshire. The triple sauna is designed to seat up to six people and includes a steam room, a relaxation room, and a traditional "washing room."

Beckham shared the moment on Instagram to his tens of millions of followers, posting a photo of himself relaxing on the sauna's terrace with the caption "I'm loving it with this cold weather right now." According to reporting from Estonian World, Beckham first discovered the design while attending director Guy Ritchie's 50th birthday celebration at Ritchie's Wiltshire estate, where Ritchie already had one installed.

Guy Ritchie: The Original Trendsetter

Long before Beckham posted his now-famous Instagram photo, film director Guy Ritchie had already installed a sauna at his country estate in Wiltshire. It was reportedly during Ritchie's 50th birthday party at the estate that Beckham first experienced the sauna and decided to buy one for his own home. Ritchie's early adoption effectively kicked off a chain reaction among his famous friends, making him — quietly — the man who started Britain's celebrity sauna trend.

Gordon Ramsay: Sauna Envy Turns Into a Planning Permission Saga

Gordon Ramsay is close friends with both Beckham and Ritchie, and their saunas didn't go unnoticed. In 2019, following the birth of his fifth child, Ramsay tried to bring the same Estonian craftsmanship to his own London home, ordering two Iglucraft "Model 4" cabins — costing around £40,000 each — to create extra living space for his family. Unlike Beckham and Ritchie's true saunas, Ramsay's cabins were the fully-equipped living-space version, complete with a kitchen, double bed, shower, and electric heating.

Ramsay's ambitions ran into a very British obstacle: council planning permission. His application to install the cabins in his London garden was initially rejected over a missing tree survey, and a separate custom sauna commissioned for a property in Cornwall reportedly had to be resold by Iglucraft after construction permit complications. Despite the red tape, Ramsay is consistently named by Iglucraft and multiple outlets as one of the earliest UK celebrity adopters of the igloo-sauna trend, following the lead of his friend Beckham.

Ben Fogle: Turning Sauna Bathing Into a Ceremony

Adventurer, broadcaster, and author Ben Fogle takes a different approach to sauna culture than the Beckham-Ritchie-Ramsay set. In spring 2021, Fogle worked with UK-based Heartwood Saunas to design a bespoke wood-fired sauna for the woodland garden of his home. His brief was specific: he wanted the structure to look like "an old structure that had been in the woods for a long time," using reclaimed materials so it blended into the landscape, while hidden glazing let him bathe while looking out at the trees.

For Fogle, the sauna isn't just a wellness gadget — it's a ritual. In an interview with Heartwood Saunas, he described building a sense of "ceremony" around the whole process: preparing the firewood, collecting water for steam, and cycling between the sauna, forest bathing, and cold-water immersion in a plunge pool. Fogle has noted that sauna bathing isn't traditionally "a very British thing," but that it became part of his life through years of travelling to remote parts of the world for his television work.

Tamzin Outhwaite: EastEnders' Sauna Convert

British sauna culture isn't confined to footballers and chefs. EastEnders actress Tamzin Outhwaite was granted planning permission to install her own outdoor sauna cabin in the back garden of her family home, designed to sit largely hidden from view. According to reporting on the trend, none of her neighbours objected to the build — a small but telling sign of how normalised garden saunas have become among UK public figures.

Why Are So Many UK Celebrities Building Home Saunas?

The rise of celebrity saunas in Britain lines up with a broader "Second Coming of Steam," as the British Sauna Society has described the country's renewed interest in sauna bathing. Estonian sauna makers like Iglucraft and UK-based specialists like Heartwood Saunas have both reported strong growth in demand from British buyers over the past several years, driven by a mix of pandemic-era home renovation spending, growing interest in wellness and recovery practices, and simple celebrity influence — one famous Instagram post from Beckham was enough to send several of his friends shopping for saunas of their own.

Beyond the celebrity circuit, public sauna culture is also expanding across the UK, from horsebox saunas and beachside pop-ups to long-established Victorian bath houses like the Royal Baths in Harrogate — proof that Britain's relationship with sauna bathing runs deeper than a passing A-list trend.

The Bottom Line

From David Beckham's Instagram-famous igloo sauna to Ben Fogle's ceremonial wood-fired bathing ritual, Britain's most recognisable faces are embracing sauna culture in genuinely different ways — some for recovery and relaxation, others for the design statement, and some, like Fogle, for something closer to a spiritual practice. As demand for home saunas continues to grow across the UK, it's a trend that shows no signs of cooling off.