Campaigners seek listed status for Finnish sauna from 1948 London Olympics

Wooden hut in Kent is Britain's oldest operating sauna and hugely important' piece of sporting history

A modest prefabricated hut that sat almost forgotten in suburban Kent for more than half a century is at the centre of an international preservation campaign, after it was recognised as a hugely important" piece of sporting history - and Britain's oldest operating sauna.

Finland's ambassador to the UK is leading a campaign to gain listed status for the fragile wooden sauna, which is an extremely rare survivor of the 1948 austerity" Olympics, hosted on a shoestring in London three years after the end of the second world war.