Crafting Welsh saunas from British timber
Olly Davey grew up between woodland and mountains in Mid Wales. Mountain biking, paddle boarding, then the pull of a warm sauna afterwards. He kept asking the same question. Why does Britain have no sauna culture of its own?
So he built one. The first Heartwood Sauna was a reworking of the traditional Nordic hut, but with one change that mattered. Glass. Traditional saunas were closed timber boxes with no view out. Olly wanted the opposite. He wanted you to sit in the warmth and look out at the hills, the sea or the garden.
“I was inspired to make something a world away from any sauna I’d ever been to in the UK. Something that just didn’t exist here.”
From a workshop in Mid Wales, Heartwood now designs and builds outdoor saunas for private and commercial clients across the UK. Some come from their Signature Collection. Others are fully bespoke. None are off the shelf.
The Arbor Five is part of that Signature Collection. A twin-pitched roof, a full-height glass front and a central frameless door. Post-box windows run along the side walls, so the view carries right through. From the top tier you get a panoramic sweep of whatever sits beyond the glass. In daylight the whole space fills with natural light, so even with the fire unlit it works as a quiet room for reading and slowing down.
Inside the Arbor Five is clad in Brimstone, our thermally modified British poplar and ash. The clean vertical lines and warm tones of the internal cladding set the tone the moment you step in.
That choice tells you how Heartwood thinks. Brimstone is British timber, thermally modified at our sawmill so it stands up to challenging conditions.
Olly puts material first. His timber is locally grown, responsibly sourced and chosen to age well. Brimstone fits that thinking. Grown in British woodland, milled in Wiltshire, then sent the short distance to Mid Wales. Less travel, less imported old-growth timber and more demand for the kind of woodland management that keeps British forests working.
Good saunas are built to last decades. That starts with the timber. Heartwood knows it. So do we.
See the Heartwood range at heartwoodsaunas.com
