An example on how to use Hibernate-Spatial with Spring Data JPA Repositories

ThingEntity.java

@Entity
@Table(name = "things")
public class ThingEntity {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    // Needed for use with Hibernate Spatial 4.x
    // @Type(type = "org.hibernate.spatial.GeometryType")
    private Geometry geometry;
}

ThingRepository.java

import org.springframework.data.repository.Repository;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.Query;

public interface ThingRepository extends Repository<ThingEntity, Long> {
    // This is a JPQL Query. Take note how I referenced the name of the entity, it's a Spring EL variable
    // If you refactor your entity, its name will be taken care of...
    @Query(value
            = "Select t from #{#entityName} t"
            + " where intersects(t.geometry, :area) = true"
    )
    List<ThingEntity> findWithinArea(Geometry area);
}