My vision was to create a woodfired oasis in a local community setting, akin to the ‘backyard sauna,’ for people to pop over to after work or at weekends.
We need regular access to this powerful means of ownership over our health, healing and happiness.
It wasn’t quite a lockdown project although that’s when it began. In 2020 in need of a creative project following a series of major life events, I found myself driving for 2 hours to get to a sauna when the local baths had shut and there were no other public saunas in the Calder Valley at that time. It made no sense. I had to build one!
I spoke to my oldest friends who agreed to help and so we began. Firstly looking for a suitable horse trailer, inspired by communities in Estonia who’d built their saunas out of recycled materials, using anything to hand, such is the imperative need for a local sauna.
We were half way through the build, with a woodfired sauna on the way when I realised I’d never actually been in a wood-fired sauna before. Other sauna folk I’ve discussed this with say this is not so surprising – woodfired sauna is in our lineage, our ancestry and so it makes sense on a cellular level.
I believe it. The physical health benefits of sauna are becoming better evidenced and understood but for me the most profound benefits are emotional.
Woodfired heat is gently transformative – steadily, over time, there’s a shift, a softening, an opening up. We feel nourished, calmer, steadier. We feel better. This is why they say, ‘sauna helps even when nothing helps’.
offered us our first home in September 2023 and we’re still here running weekly community sessions and private hires.
Since then we’ve held biannual sauna & yoga retreats, sauna with breathwork, sauna with soundbath and in 2025 began monthly woodland pop ups at Hardcastle Crags.
To get in touch please contact
Mytholmroyd Community Centre