Why David Cameron’s eco hot tub is a garden game-changer
As the former PM installs an £8,000 freshwater tub, is it wrong to want one of your own, asks Guy Kelly
There are a lot of people who’d pay to see it: David Cameron slipping into a bubbling broth, to be slow-poached by his own hubris. And now they might just get to – assuming they’re Cornwall-based, that is. And they own a decent pair of binoculars. And don’t mind that he’ll be able to get back out.
Yes, almost two years to the day since he installed a £25,000 luxury shepherd’s hut in his Cotswolds garden, Britain’s somehow-still-most-recent former prime minister has reportedly bought an £8,000 freshwater hot tub for his other, other home at Daymer Bay, near Padstow.
“Critics think he should be in hot water after Brexit gridlock – but this is not what they had in mind,” a neighbour, who may or may not be real, was quoted as saying.
The Camerons, who also have a home in Notting Hill, bought their £2million Cornish bolt-hole in 2017, and now seem busy customising the grounds, ready for the summer. A pastel-coloured hut (yes, another one) has appeared near the driveway, but so has a circular, cedarwood tub that apparently holds six people, weighs two tons, is powered by an inbuilt wood burner and filled with freshwater.
“Set yourself free,” recommends the website of Forest Flame, the Peak District company Cameron is thought to have purchased his tub from. Their “eco-friendly” hot tubs are made to order at a minimum price of £5,800, before delivery costs. Who would buy such a thing? Well, fortunately Forest Flame bullet-points the sort of person who’d make the ideal owner. It’s not difficult to imagine Cameron scrolling through the lot, nodding.
“You like things to be authentic,” the list begins. Tick, the former MP for Witney would think, surveying his Farrow & Ball-painted, fauxantique, pretend shepherd’s hideaway on his lawn near Chipping Norton. He’d read on: “You appreciate true craftsmanship and attention to detail.” That’s me again, Cameron would mutter, crumpling up another first page of his preposterously overdue autobiography and tossing it in the direction of the waste paper bin.
“You believe the objects in your
life must have soul and a higher purpose.” A glance at his framed 2015 Conservative Party manifesto: guilty as charged.
“You want to be free of constraints.” An email pings on his Blackberry, but the subject line from his publisher, William Collins – “Got an ETA on the
With Gordon Ramsay and his growing litter just up the road, that’s quite some summer
memoirs yet Dave?” – is so familiar, he doesn’t need to look. Finally: “You want to relax.” No, no, Cameron would think, I want to chillax. Add to basket.
David Cameron and his family are, of course, perfectly within their rights to buy a hot tub, even if it annoys the rest of us a great, great deal. Buying one of the on-trend freshwater kind should come as no surprise, either. The Camerons bought a shepherd’s hut at a time when they were “sprouting up everywhere” (Dave’s words), and Samantha posted a photograph of their new outdoor brazier when those were the hot
garden extravagance du jour, too.
It was only recently that the traditional Jacuzzi-style hot tub – chlorinated, plastic, possibly harbouring Legionnaires’ disease and doubtless sloshing with the Full English of body fluids – started being installed by the sort of couples who invite guests to enjoy “a little swapsies after pudding, if you know what Sharon and I mean”, wear monogrammed bath robes over matching mahogany spray tans, and never run out of vol-au-vents.
Nowadays, freshwater hot tubs could be bought by anybody (rich). They involve no chemicals and are largely just wood and stainless steel, with log burners heating the water, which is moved around by a large oar. They’re popular at festivals, such as Cameron’s favourite, Wilderness, and at glamping sites, where they’re valued for being relatively green – at least compared to their alternative – and able to be set up anywhere, regardless of electrical access.
The Camerons have theirs staring out across the mouth of the River Camel, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Padstow on the other. The two cubic metres of fresh water they’ll stew in is, says Forest Flame, “great for parties”: with Gordon Ramsay and his growing litter just up the road, that’s quite some summer they might have.
In January, the actress Miriam Margolyes told an Australian chat show that Cameron should be “boiled in oil” for his role in Brexit. She and other critics haven’t quite got their wish, but who knows how he’ll take to his tub. This is a man with a history of vanishing as soon as the heat turns high, after all…