Detox at Downe

Detox at Downe is a week long Spa Package that provides:

The Therapies

The Detox at Downe includes a series of therapies spread over the week.

The therapies included in the Detox at Downe are primarily designed to relax, refresh and energise the guest but the Detox at Downe also includes a “Top to Toe Day” in which the therapies are designed to enhance the guest’s appearance (a beauty facial, a beauty body therapy and cosmetic treatments for hands and feet).  The belief is that these therapies will help generate a feeling of well being because “looking good helps one feel good about oneself”.

The Meals

All of the meals served during your Detox at Downe follow the “Hay Diet” principles (in essence, food combining so that one eats carbohydrates and proteins at different times of the day). The dishes are all prepared at Downe and are unashamedly healthy and appetising.

The example we always give to indicate the quality of the meals served at Downe is that of the salads.  The simplest of dishes yet the vast majority of salads we have been served in the UK (and that includes many top quality restaurants and every lesser restaurant or dining place that we have eaten in) have been disappointing.

All of the salds at Downe are prepared with a variety of salad leaf harvested from our garden an hour or so before serving. (Our salads are always those in season growing under glass or in our borders and we usually have at least half a dozen varieties of salad leaf to harvest.) To the salad leaf mixture we add fresh herbs in season from our garden (fresh mint, chives, basil, parsley etc) and if available fresh beet leaf or very new spinach shoots. Our salad dressing is a simple mixture of good quality Balsamic Vinegar and Virgin Olive Oil. That combination of a variety of fresh salad leaf, fresh herb and good quality Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil is unbeatable. 

Gentle Exercise

There is a Gym at Downe which is available from 7.00 a.m. through to 9.00 p.m. everyday. However we believe that for many guests a planned programme of daily walks is an adequate programme of exercise. The added benefit is that the walks encourage the guests to explore the wonderful coastline around the Hartland Peninsula and the walks in themselves are a means of relaxing and de-stressing.

Beautiful Accommodation

The process of relaxation is greatly assisted by the fact that your stay at Downe is in a lovely, listed,stone cottage set in a beautiful large courtyard and all of which are set in ten acres of gardens. The cottages help generate a feeling of calm and serenity.

An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

The Hartland Peninsula is an undiscovered jewel in England’s crown. The Peninsula has a magical, remote, rugged, beautiful coastline and generates a passionate loyalty amongst many regular visitors. The Peninsula demands that the guest put away the foolish pressures of the Twenty First Century and take time to enjoy the wonderful scenery that surrounds you at Downe. (To see what we mean view a copy of the BBC’s “Sense and Sensibility” adapted by Andrew Davies – the Dashwood’s home in Devonshire is located half a mile from Downe. )

Detox at Downe combines the beauty and serenity of the location with the pampering and relaxing experience of wonderful therapies and the highest standards of customer care.

The Schedule

Detox at Downe includes the following Pamper Days and therapies:

Day One:

Day Two:

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

The Cost

The cost of Detox at Downe is £1,299 per person.

The Hay Diet

The Hay Diet is a food combining diet created by Dr William Hay in the early 1900′s. It is based on the idea that the body does not cope well with proteins and carbohydrates when they are eaten at the same time because of the way each food group is digested in the human body.

The Hay Diet has its origin in the belief that for most of human evolution the human body was accustomed to eat only one type of food at time and that our digestive systems did not develop to deal with varieties of food combined in a single meal (which is typical of modern eating habits).

Dr Hay believed that, because they combine different varieties of food in a single meal, modern eating habits result in the poor elimination of wastes and toxins. In addition modern eating habits (the result of great economic prosperity and the consequent ready availabilty of meat and processed food) do not include sufficient quantities of  alkaline forming vegetables and fruits.

He believed that the Hay Diet addressed the problems caused by modern eating habits because it:

The Hay Diet proposes that an individual should eat 60% fresh fruits and vegetables, as much as possible in their raw state. The remaining foods should be proteins or starches that shouldn’t be eaten together and should only be eaten with a gap of at  least 4 hours between food types.

We are passionate advocates of the Hay Diet because of our personal experience of the benefits of the diet. We have experienced weight loss, benefits in long term weight management (even more important in our view than weight loss), benefits in terms of a gain in energy levels and benefits in terms of improved joint condition.

Although diets are very personal and each individual responds differently to a diet, so many people record benefits from the Hay Diet that we are amazed it is not an essential element in the design of all school meals.  It is such a simple guide to sensible diet and does not involve the persistent feeling of hunger that it is an intrinsic part of so many diets.