New Hackney sauna comes with historical pedigree

an image of someone adding water with a wooden spoon to the hot stones in the sauna — (Image credit: Rooftop Saunas)

Aside from the Tube in summer, there are plenty of (more official) places to sweat in London – the city is simply sauna mad, with dozens of offerings across each borough. These aren’t your usual sweaty boxes either, with rooftop saunas, club style ones with live music, and even a floating one available to stressed out Londoners. Now a former pumping station is going to be heating up.

Hackney’s Grade II listed building, The Stoke Newington Pumping Station is set to become the city’s latest sauna. It's known affectionately as the Castle to locals due to its gothic aesthetic and 1850s architecture. As pumping centres aren’t as common, it found a second lease of life as a climbing centre back in the late 1990s but Community Sauna CIC has other plans for the space.

Community Sauna CIC is the same gang behind some of the best and most affordable sauna sites in the city, with spots in Hackney Wick, Walthamstow, Camberwell, Peckham, and Stratford. It’s a not-for-profit biz, who are trying to make a little self care accessible for everyone. Its sites each offer saunas and cold plunges as well as bespoke events across each location like queer poetry nights, breathwork sessions, and yoga. This latest potential site plans to build a sauna facility which would host up to 16 people per session.

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an image of a woman in the cold water plunge after exiting the sauna at the community sauna baths

According to the plans submitted by the group, a dry heated timber sauna will be added along with two cold showers in the southern side of the climbing centre. Unlike the other sites, so far there aren’t any visible plans to have a cold plunge pool at the moment, and considering the number of objections by locals already, it may be a while until we see one.

Stephen Moorhouse, representing the non-profit, said: ‘Our vision is quite simple: to bring communities together around an activity that improves wellbeing and to make that experience accessible to as many people as possible.’

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Hermione Blandford is the Content Editor for Shortlist’s social media which means you can usually find her scrolling through Instagram and calling it work, or stopping random people in the street and accosting them with a mini mic. She has previously worked in food and drink PR for brands including Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Gordon's, The Singleton, Lagavulin and Don Julio which means she is a self confessed expert in spicy margaritas and pints, regularly popping into the pub in the name of research.