Meet the maker...
‘I’m spa to the very core!’ says Peigín Crowley, a massage therapist of 30 years who started her wellness brand, GROUND, from her Cork kitchen table in 2020, back when the world was deep in lockdown.
She took a conscious decision “to go forward to basics and celebrate them” – and founded GROUND with a truly holistic approach to self-care, blending massage oils by hand and packaging up those first orders with the help of her family “bubble”.
Today, Peigín’s award-winning products can be found in some of the most relaxing spas and space around the world – including our Fieldhouse.
The founder of GROUND, Peigín Crowley built her celebrated wellbeing brand with a truly holistic approach to self-care that suits our Fieldhouse perfectly
“I’m kind of institutional: I’m spa to the very core,” says Peigín Crowley, a massage therapist of 30 years’ standing who started her own wellness brand, GROUND, from her Cork kitchen table in 2020, back when the world was deep in lockdown. She took a conscious decision “to go forward to basics, in a celebratory way”, blending massage oils by hand and packaging up those first orders with the help of her family “bubble”. Today, her award-winning products feature in some of the finest spas in the world – including the Fieldhouse at THE PIG-in the Cotswolds.
“In my early career, I massaged thousands of bodies and spent time designing spa journeys, so I knew what therapists needed,” Peigín says. At 20, she took a job as a spa therapist on a cruise ship, mastering advanced massage techniques from global experts, before returning to Ireland to work with Elemis and Estée Lauder. She became a sought-after spa consultant. Then came her epiphany: she saw that real self-care was about more than mere indulgence – it had to be easily accessible, deeply therapeutic and rooted in everyday life. “I realised it wasn’t just products,” she says. “That’s why we’re a therapist-centric brand. Training and protocols are more important, allowing us to deliver nervous-system regulation. We approach it via biology, harnessing the power of essential oils to bring treatments to life.”
Our Fieldhouse spa menu “might not be War and Peace, but it’s comprehensive”, Peigín says. “The onus is not so much on guests picking the right treatment for them, it’s on understanding, through consultation with the therapist, how their body is right now, where they’re at in their life, and how they would like to feel afterwards. The therapists are trained and empowered. We let them jigsaw-piece together the best treatment for that person.”
As a brand, Peigín says, “GROUND is sincerely holistic” in its plant-based approach to issues such as sleep, anxiety, hormone fluctuations and gut health. “We work from the ground up with essential oils – these perfect plant messages that can sedate the body or cleanse, help with clarity or focus or memory. The products allow you to ground yourself, too, to come out of the thinking mind and into a breathing body, so that the nervous system can move from solution-based, cognitive thinking into relaxing.” And in the ultimate virtuous circle, that relaxation allows the products to do their work all the more effectively.
What is it about THE PIG-in the Cotswolds that resonates with Peigín’s philosophy for GROUND? “As brands, they feel so similar,” she says. “THE PIG’s identity organically emerges through the most incredible buildings, wonderful gastronomy – it doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. It feels like a hug, which I love. So this is an absolute meeting of two sincere brands that do what they do really well.”
For seasoned spa-goers, the GROUND/Fieldhouse experience might seem a little different to their usual treatments. “Our therapists’ approach to a facial is through skin function and wellness: it’s about how comfortable we are in our skin and how our skin feels, rather than how it looks to others. We’re a brand that doesn’t concern ourselves with cellulite or wrinkles or pigmentation. We believe how we feel on the inside is going to show up on the outside. Which is why, in a consultation, we ask how you are in your body right now.”
When it comes to Peigín’s favourite products, it is, she jokes, like being asked to choose her favourite child. “It’s almost impossible... I guess my go-tos at home would be, first, our brilliant Magnesium Spray for the feet and legs – because I get restless legs. And our Cleanse Castor Oil, blended with cardamom, ginger, marjoram and caraway, which is great for belly bloating.”
Ultimately, Peigín believes GROUND is “going forward to the truth. The truth has always been there. When you look at principled ideologies – ayurveda in India, traditional Chinese medicine – they understood the microbiome thousands of years ago. We’ve been so marketed to that we’ve lost trust, we’ve lost that connection to our own bodies. We have to keep learning, we have to keep moving ourselves forward: the truth is out there. We’ve just got to figure it out.”
Experience GROUND products at our Fieldhouse spa at THE PIG-in the Cotswolds. Discover more at groundwellbeing.com
