Why is everyone talking about sauna?

Something is happening around Britain’s beaches, lakes, rivers and outdoor pools.

Sauna, once more readily associated with Finland and Scandinavia, is finding a distinctly British home outdoors. Small community saunas are appearing beside swimming spots and in towns and cities across the country, bringing together heat, cold water, fresh air and, perhaps most importantly, people.

Few people have explored this new sauna culture as extensively as writer and journalist Emma O’Kelly (www.emmaokelly.co.uk), author of Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat and Wild Sauna: The Best Outdoor Saunas in Britain.

And on Tuesday 15 September, Emma is coming to Petersfield to talk about it.

At Sauna Talk: The Power of Deep Heat, Emma will share some of what she has discovered travelling through the sauna world: its traditions and rituals, its extraordinary resurgence in Britain, the relationship between heat and cold, and why so many people seem to emerge from a sauna feeling calmer, clearer and just a little different.

There will also be an opportunity to put your own questions to Emma, meet her afterwards and have a copy of her book signed.

And the timing couldn’t be better.

As Petersfield Lido begins its own sauna story, we’re delighted to welcome someone who has spent years exploring how sauna, swimming, nature and community are coming together in a new way across Britain.

Perhaps Petersfield is about to become part of that story too.

The Power of Deep Heat with Emma O’Kelly

• Tuesday 15 September 2026
Churcher’s College, Petersfield
• Doors open 18:30
• Talk and Q&A 19:00–20:00
• Further questions and book signing until 8.30pm
• Tickets £12.50
• Free parking

Book here: Autumn Talk – Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat

Emma’s fascination with sauna began on a work trip to Finland in 2016. At the end of the day, she found herself doing what the Finns had been doing for generations: getting hot in a sauna, jumping into a cold lake, then going back and doing it all again.

Her reaction was wonderfully straightforward:

“This is so much fun, I thought, why don’t we do this in UK!”

It turned into rather more than a passing thought.

Emma travelled through northern Europe researching the traditions, history, design and culture surrounding sauna for her first book, Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat. Her latest book, Wild Sauna, brings the story home, documenting more than 180 outdoor saunas around Britain, from cabins beside beaches to saunas hidden in forests and beside natural swimming spots.

Today, she is one of the voices at the heart of Britain’s growing sauna movement, appearing at the British Sauna Summit and writing about the rapidly changing culture of heat and cold.

David Baddiel, Comedian and author: “I love this book about saunas almost as much as I love saunas”.

For Emma, the interesting thing about sauna isn’t simply temperature.

It is what happens around it.

Saunas have traditionally been places to stop, talk and spend time together. Emma describes today’s new saunas as places where people can step away from technology, gather, share stories and reconnect with nature.

And she believes that sense of community is one of the reasons sauna is taking off so quickly here.

“One of the main factors driving the sauna boom in the UK and the US is the sense of community. Where else can you go that everyone is welcome?”

There is something rather appealing about that idea at Petersfield Lido.

For more than a century, the Lido has been a place where people come together outdoors. Our new sauna gives us another way to do that, extending the experience beyond swimming and, importantly, beyond summer.

Jasper Pääkkönen, actor and founder of Löyly: “A wonderful, in-depth look at a subject that is extremely close to my heart”.

There is another reason Emma’s visit feels particularly timely.

Cold water has always been part of her own sauna story. She is a year-round swimmer at Hampstead Ladies’ Pond and Parliament Hill Lido, and Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat explores the longstanding relationship between sauna and cold-water swimming.

That relationship is about to become part of life at Petersfield too.

Our new 12-person sauna has now arrived at the Lido, and our cold plunges are on their way. Together with the pool, they will give swimmers the opportunity to discover the contrast between heat and cooler water for themselves.

And as autumn arrives, the pool changes too. It remains heated to 26°C throughout September, before moving to 18°C from October, when we’ll begin introducing more people to cooler-water swimming.

For anyone curious but not quite sure where to begin, we’ll also be running free sauna familiarisation sessions, designed to take some of the mystery out of the experience and help people feel comfortable before booking a full session.

You don’t have to be a seasoned sauna-goer or an experienced cold-water swimmer. In fact, you don’t have to know anything about either.

Curiosity is enough.