Under covers at the Sexmoor hotel
Middle-class couples making VERY merry all night in a Somerset beauty spot are leaving locals in uproar. But as JANE FRYER found on a guided tour, oddest of all is the story of the unabashed businessman behind it
There is nothing about Allen McCloud, a small, neat, grey- haired former BP electrical engineer, that screams ‘sex party’.
if anything, with his soft voice and hesitant manner, he seems more like a nervous geography teacher than the self-appointed saviour of the somerset swinging scene. But appearances are often deceptive. Allen, 59, proudly treats me to a guided tour of some of his new themed ‘lifestyle’ rooms at the Croydon hall hotel, in the sleepy village of rodhuish, population 293, near Minehead.
‘i wanted to provide somewhere that really lifts your heart as you walk in because these are normal people, just with broad minds,’ he says. We start in the red-swathed Love heart room, lit with a red neon heart, before popping into the Police room with a barred padded cell.
Then there’s the Dark room where visitors ‘feel’ their way around; and the Cinema room with a stage and sofas so, as Allen puts it: ‘some members can put a show on and others can watch. some people like to share their
skills — it’s amazing what you can learn!’ We then poke our heads round the roman room (a teeny box room with dusty plastic vines woven through a towel rail); the Massage room (Allen’s favourite: ‘i like all the essential oils’) and have a quick flit in the London room, with a replica 10 Downing street door and peep-hole window.
Just as i am beginning to feel distinctly uneasy and rather queasy, we reach the 50 shades Of Grey-inspired red room.
here, Allen points out the black leather swings, whips, masks — and a few other alarming accoutrements.
if it all feels a bit much for a grey weekday morning it’s because, well, frankly, it is.
it’s not just me who’s struggling with the idea of group-sex parties for all ages over 18. Allen’s neighbours and immediate locals have been hopping mad ever since he started hosting his ‘exclusively silk’ members’ soirees at Croydon hall earlier this year, attracting up to 75 swingers a time from as far afield as scotland and spain.
They are currently challenging the legality of Allen’s use of the hotel (in the exmoor National Park) for the parties and, earlier this week, turned out in force at the local council offices to object to his application for an alcohol licence extension from midnight to 3am, six days a week — which seems an awful lot of late-night shenanigans. (in the event, he was pruned back to 1am for four nights a week.)
some gamely insist that they do not object to the theme of the parties.
‘They could be playing dominoes for all we care!’ says susan Brierley, whose family has owned their house for over 60 years. ‘Anything that serves alcohol until 3am is going to disturb us.’
What they do mind is their nights being disturbed by the arrival of dozens of excitable visitors to their usually sleepy hollow.
At event after event — ‘ Naughty Burns Night’, ‘ Naughty Girls rule’ and ‘ Discovering swinging’ ( for beginners) — all run with temporary extended licences, they’ve been kept awake until 4am by cars revving up the narrow, sunken lanes, floodlights glaring in the hotel car park, and revellers bidding fond farewells.
‘i could hear people saying: “Goodbye, what a fun night!” raged one. Others are less open-minded. ‘he’s got a room with 300 lockers for all their clothes, for goodness sake!’ says Anne Pitts. ‘This is NOT normal hotel use!’
Allen might seem ordinary when you first meet him, but the more time i spend wandering round the hotel, which has a dance area with parquet flooring, a shiny pole and exotic art that cost him £200,000, the more disturbing it all seems.
Partly, of course, because it is all so alien as i, like most people, am not a swinger. swinging was alien even to Allen — who describes himself as ‘very open-minded, but not a sexmad individual’ — until recently.
he had never even heard of swingers’ parties, let alone been to one.
‘it had never even entered my head. it’s all new to me really.’
indeed, not so long ago, he led a very different life.
After a stint in the royal Marines, he spent 20 years working abroad for British Petroleum, as a senior (and extremely well- paid) electrical engineer, until his life was shattered by tragedy.
he was at the Tigantourine gas facility near Amenas, Algeria, which was attacked by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in January 2013.
‘i survived for four days by hiding under my bed,’ he says. ‘i thought that was it. i was very scared. i lost 40 very good friends.’
DESPITE
the trauma, he refused therapy and, amazingly, returned for three more years to finish the contract. ‘it made me change my mind about a lot of things — made me realise you’re only alive once and you’re dead a long time,’ he says.
it was in 2016, while visiting friends in holland, that a chance meeting with a multi-millionaire changed everything.
‘he had his own helicopter,’ he says. ‘so i asked him what he did and he said he ran a club called Fun4Two. he invited me along and i thought: “Wow! What a concept. What a business model. That’s my future!”’
he claims his subsequent research revealed that up to ten million Brits either swing, or have expressed interest in swinging.
really? One in six of the population? That seems staggeringly high.
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he says. ‘if i logged on to a national swingers’ website
now, within a 20-mile radius of here would be more than 200 swingers, all looking for a place to meet!’
But despite having a computer in front of him, he does not log in, so we don’t get to test his theory.
Fast forward to last November and Allen bought the Croydon hall hotel, which sits in a lush green bowl surrounded by trees on the site of a former monastery, for £1.8 million.
he has, he says, a classy clientele — lawyers, medical personnel, accountants, teachers, professionals, you name it.
‘We have some very nice cars driving up here,’ he says proudly. ‘These people are not sneaking about. They are not doing it behind their wife’s back.
‘i wanted it to be classy, i wanted the wow factor.’
Outside, it certainly is a lovely spot. The lawns are a luscious expanse of emerald green. There’s an outdoor pool, lots of secretive wooded areas to get lost in — with someone else’s wife or husband — a spa area that smells very strongly of cleaning products and, parked in front, Allen’s big black range rover with personalised number plate ‘69 AM’.
inside, other than the heavily padded ‘playrooms’, it is still a work in progress. eight bedrooms are now habitable — Allen also rents the hotel to hen parties, stag parties and other group bookings.
Not that his swinging customers — who pay £80 a night and have to be members of his online £60-a-year exclusively silk club to attend — seem to care.
every review on his website raves about the wonderful time they’ve had. ‘This is far more smoked salmon blini than the usual potato chips’, enthused one.
SO,
er, do Allen and his ‘very broad-minded’ partner — a nurse whom he says doesn’t want to be mentioned by name because she has children — join in?
‘No, no, no! Of course we are in the swinging scene and i can’t tell you how great the social side is,’ he says. ‘But we can’t be off upstairs playing when the local licensing body comes to the door. it has to be strictly business,’ he says.
Because the fact is, sex parties don’t just run themselves.
There are strict etiquette rules about which Allen is very firm.
No ragged jeans, no dirty hair, absolutely no single men and, ideally, no full nudity in the restaurant area where a ‘ delicious meal’ of either curry or salmon provided by local caterers is served throughout the evening. And of course, ‘ no’ means ‘no’.
Most guests arrive between 7.30pm and 10pm in plenty of time for the big moment. Quite a few, Allen insists, are local. At exactly 10.30pm the sound system blasts out Tom Jones’s 1997 hit, You Can Keep Your hat On, and everyone not already down to their undies immediately strips off — hence all those lockers. ‘They have to. it’s compulsory.’ so, no long trousers, no dresses, no skirts, nothing that covers the body — just sexy baby- dolls and body stockings, and boxers for the men.
‘ it helps anyone who’s a bit nervous — everyone who’s still sitting on the fence.’
After that, it sounds as if all hell breaks out. Couples make out on the dance floor, the bar, the stairs.
‘They can do it anywhere,’ he says. ‘But most people head upstairs — the red room is very popular.’
Downstairs, a professional pole dancer might give a few tips. A bondage-loving couple might show off their rope skills.
‘it’s amazing what they do,’ says Allen. ‘it’s not just getting into bed and whipping someone. There’s a real art to it.’
i’m beginning to feel as if i’ve entered some deeply debauched parallel dimension and can’t find my
way out. Ironically, given all the fuss from neighbours about Allen’s late-licence application this week, the one thing he won’t tolerate is drunkenness.
It turns out that swingers are very open-minded about everything but booze.
‘You don’t go to a swingers’ party to get drunk. It’s not the done thing,’ he says, sounding positively prudish. ‘You don’t want some drunk person breathing all over you and trying to chat you up. It’s supposed to be nice, and classy and fun.’
That may well be but, frankly, it’s hard to think of anyone, other than a committed swinger, who would want all this going on next door? No wonder the neighbours are struggling with it all.
One couple, David and Anne Pitts, who own a large holiday house next door, insist that their bookings are dramatically down.
‘ Would you want to book a family holiday next to a sex hotel?’ asks Anne. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t.’
So far, with the use of Temporary extension Notices, Allen has been able to host his very late-night parties on the basis that some guests stay overnight in a selection of rooms that range from £80 to £120 a time, which in includes tea and coffeemaking m facilities and br breakfast. (Somehow I ju just can’t imagine the ch chat over a full english in the sunlit refectory the next morning.) S Sadly, for the immediate ate locals, the cutting ba back of his licence app application this week is a pyr pyrrhic victory. As a hotelier, Allen is lega legally permitted to continue tinu serving alcohol as long as his staying guests wan want to keep going. No Now, the neighbours’ only hope for a good nigh night’s sleep is an investigation gatio by the exmoor N National ti Park Authority over concerns that the venue may not have proper planning permission for its activities. In the meantime, in this idyllic corner of a national park, the parties will continue — next up are ‘Trio’ and ‘Fetish’ nights — and I thank my lucky stars I don’t live next door.