Hot Stuff: the extraordinary story of the Cobdown sauna

Words Grace McCloud
Photography Sean Myers

To many, a sauna is a luxury, but to the Finnish people, it’s a way of life. Far beyond a mere spa treatment, the sauna is a central part of Finnish communities – as much a place to come together as to find a bit of peace, simultaneously mind-clearing, sweat-inducing and spirit-lifting. Fed with fresh water, saunas have historically been considered incredibly hygienic spaces, which is why, in the past, many women would have given birth in these warm and quiet timber-lined rooms. There are still some Finns alive today who were born in the saunas that form part of many homes across the country. Their popularity has never wavered; these days, Finland – population 5.5 million – has approximately three million saunas.

The connection between saunas and physical recreation is similarly established – after all, what better cure is there for a spasming hamstring than heat? The multiple-record-breaking long-distance runner Paavo Nurmi, known as the ‘Flying Finn’, certainly thought so, crediting saunas for his stamina and success at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, which were beleaguered by a punishing heatwave. Less obvious, however, is the story of how a mid-century Finnish sauna ended up at a sports club in the grounds of Cobdown Park, not far from Aylesford in Kent.

The tale begins in 1948, the year of the first summer Olympics to be held since the start of World War II, due to take place in London. As the city prepared to host teams from 59 nations, the question of where to house them arose. A dedicated village was deemed profligate at a time when rationing was still in place and the scars of the Blitz still marred the urban landscape, so it was decided squads would make use of existing buildings – women in various colleges around town, men in a military convalescent hospital in Richmond Park.

Among the 1,700 that descended on this patch of west London were 123 male athletes from Finland, bringing with them a company of trainers and physios. And a sauna. Designed by Toivo Jäntti, an architect noted for his functionalist designs in Finland, and built using pre-fab elements by a company called Puutalo Oy, which was celebrated for its role in the reconstruction of Finland after the war, it was a simple structure clad in treated black timber panelling, topped by wooden roof tiles and raised on a concrete platform. There was a massage room, a small kitchen, a shower and changing room and a large sauna with tiered wooden seats, one corner of which was given over to the wood burner that was lit every morning. All the rooms were lined with timber panelling too.

During their stay, the Finnish team were invited to train at at the sports club belonging to Reed paper mill in Aylesford, a company that had links to sylvan Finland and another paper company there, with whom it had founded an annual running competition for both firms’ employees. And so, while when the games ended, the Fins went home with their 20 medals (eight of them gold), the sauna did not. Instead, it moved permanently to Kent.

Originally, the Finnish sauna – shown later in an illustration from the September 1959 edition of the Papyrus journal from the Reed Paper Group – was for the use of company employees only, among them a man named Richard Young. Richard worked at Reed from 1975 until the early 1990s and would come here regularly. Since – in true Finnish style – it was naturist, men and women were allotted different days; “We had Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” Richard says. “You could pop over whenever you had a moment – before work, at lunch, after a game of squash in the evening. It was wonderful.” It was, he recalls, “a different time – one when your physical wellbeing was deemed of interest to your employer. It doesn’t seem that’s the case anymore, though it makes sense to me.”

By 2000, Reed International, as it was then known, had transferred ownership of its sports club to a private enterprise that had little interest in the sauna, though they allowed the Cobdown Sauna Club to continue renting it. It was at this time that Richard, among the youngest of its members, took over the reins as secretary and treasurer of the club. “The old boys handed it over to me – not that there was anything to hand over – no accounts, no minutes… Just a bank book with our name on it.” Richard smiles as he tells me that, back then, an annual membership cost £150. Guests could come and sweat it out for £3.

But, with the eventual closure of paper business, membership dwindled. People were more interested in football than Finnish saunas, Richard recalls, though he thinks the nudity might have had something to do with it too. “It’s odd. In most of mainland Europe, nobody would think it was weird to sit in a naturist sauna, but here, people are so prudish. It’s such a shame,” he says sincerely. By October 2019, Richard and the rest of the club were forced to turn the sauna off after it failed its annual maintenance check. In the years since, Covid and a number of deaths among the older members of the club meant its reopening became less and less likely. The state of the building deteriorated.

Nevertheless, Richard has remained in post, determined that the fire – albeit electric these days – hasn’t gone out forever. Aided by Gareth White, who lives in a house overlooking the sauna, Richard has been working at upping the club’s membership (now totalling 50, many of whom have joined – for free – to help the cause) with a view to preserving and one day reopening the place. Lately, they’ve had some good news: in January 2024, the sauna was awarded a Grade II listing on account of it being the oldest surviving Olympic sauna in the world and the earliest surviving purpose-built Finnish sauna in continuous use in England. That so many original details survive surely helped their case – from the footbath and chunky hand-carved door latches to the mid-century floral tiling still extant in the changing room and the red leather massage beds. The fact that 1940s photographs still hang on the walls and the enchanting mechanical weighing scales (with inbuilt BMI calculator) still stands in the massage room must have helped too, if only emotionally.

The recent triumph has been a community effort. It was Richard’s friend and sauna guest Mike Birkbeck who first suggested letting the Finnish Olympic Committee know about their predicament. Things snowballed: the committee then got in touch with the Finnish embassy, which in turn contacted the British Sauna Society (who knew?), the president of which is Finnish. He and his wife came to visit and were predictably bewitched. A journalist from a Finnish newspaper came too; Richard is clearly moved when he recalls her wonder at stumbling across the striking black building, Finnish flag fluttering above and surrounded by Nordic pine trees. “‘Oh, Richard!’ she said to me, ‘This is Finland.’”

Richard also credits the doggedness and ingenuity of Gareth and the other residents who look on to the sauna. Having spring cleaned, cleared overgrown bracken from the site and repainted the woodwork with his neighbours, Gareth then hosted a fundraiser at the sauna, inviting, among others, their local MP, Tracy Crouch, who happened to have stood as Conservative minister for sport under Boris Johnson. She’s also a member of K Sports Cobdown, which has run the sports club since 2015.

As Richard says, “things got moving” then. The sauna ended up on Historic England’s radar and, less than a year later, it’s protected. That’s not to say it’s safe, however. “When I think back to 2019, when I was told it would cost £4,000 to fix things, I just laugh,” Richard says. “We reckon it’s more like £40,000 now.” The electrics need rewiring, the water needs replumbing, the building needs to meet new fire regulations and it probably needs new casement windows too, as well as some proper insulation. The club currently has about £2,000 in the bank, though they’ve recently started crowdfunding and the listing means they can start applying for grants too.

Richard admits he’s ended up in a conservation battle if not against his will, then certainly against his inclination. “I’m retired. All I want is a nice, working sauna, really.” You can tell he thinks it’s worth it. Together, we walk into the sauna room itself, where slatted wooden headrests are stacked in a corner. Inhaling deeply, I wonder if I am imagining a whisper of piney resin on the decidedly chilly air, that unmistakable sauna smell? “No,” Richard says. “It’s never gone away.”

Cobdown Sauna Club is on Facebook. To donate, visit the club’s JustGiving page.