It's a very nice house in the country (but not for an orgy)
Wealthy guests sipped champagne, but at midnight everything suddenly changed
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Independent Minds
Grahame Bond rented out Halswell House to a Dutch company but failed to research their parties
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Nestled in the rolling Somerset countryside and surrounded by 17 acres of meticulously kept gardens, Halswell House is the sort of quintessentially English retreat that would make an ideal backdrop for a romantic period drama. It is also a perfect venue if you happen to be a member of a shady European party circle which indulges in the very un-English pastime of mass orgies.
Last weekend, employees at the 17th-century manor house, which is accustomed to hosting corporate dos and chocolate-box weddings for well-heeled clients, were left speechless when 350 masked guests stripped off at the stroke of midnight and engaged in group sex of bacchanalian proportions.
According to those who witnessed the spectacle, security guards gave up trying to persuade copulating couples to go to their rooms because almost every guest at the party was "otherwise engaged" with a fellow reveller.
Grahame Bond, the hotel's multimillionaire owner, had hired his 30-room house out for £9,000 to a Dutch company who planned to host a private party, charging guests £65 a ticket. When a convoy of BMWs, Aston Martins and Porsches swept up the driveway on Saturday evening and disgorged their masked occupants, staff assumed they were dealing with a fabulously well-attired fancy-dress party.
But at the stroke of midnight, the atmosphere suddenly changed. "We began the evening by serving the guests Kir Royals and the champagne flowed," Mr Bond recalled yesterday. "There was a man – the party organiser – telling guests in a loud voice that they were all under a spell. Then, at the stroke of midnight, he told them that if they kissed a guest the spell would be broken. I couldn't believe my eyes. It suddenly turned into a scene from Eyes Wide Shut."
Wherever Mr Bond and his dumbfounded staff looked, they could see revellers indulging in group sex. "Everywhere there were couples having sex," he said. "Over the banisters alone I counted four couples at it."
Exclusive swinging parties have long been a staple for the debauched doyens of Mayfair, but locals from the nearby village of Goathurst were flabbergasted. "My staff were astonished and it wasn't long before word got out," admitted Mr Bond, a property developer who acquired Halswell House in 2004 and has since spent more than £5m renovating the building.
The Independent has discovered that the party was hosted by Little Sins, a Dutch company which specialises in throwing luxury swingers parties for Europe's wealthy élite. Known as an "Eyes Wide Sin" party, anyone attending must be over the age of 21 and men can only join if they are part of a couple. The dress code is strictly monitored by a "doorbabe", who makes sure that anyone attending the party has obeyed the sartorial requirements. Once inside, pretty much anything goes.
A promotional video invites party-goers to a "temple of lust" in the British countryside and claims it is the first time that Little Sins has come to Britain. The footage, taken from a previous party in a German castle, shows naked and masked couples cavorting to the sounds of thumping club music. The mobile-phone number of the party organiser was not answered yesterday, but Mr Bond said the owner of Little Sins had told him that the British event had been particularly debauched.
Mr Bond said: "The chap who organised it told me that in Holland they are all rather used to these things, but because this doesn't happen much in Britain he said the guests really went for it. He certainly wasn't wrong."
The hotel's owner insisted, however, that he had no inkling that an orgy had been planned. "We were terribly naïve," he said. "The organisers were very polite and well-spoken. Perhaps the alarm bells should have rung when they asked for a chill-out room filled with beds and silk sheets, but we thought they were going for a Moroccan feel and might want mint tea or something."
The revellers did, however, call it a night at 3am. "We didn't have any trouble and everyone went to bed very quickly. Most of them stayed in the hotel rooms but there were a few who got on a bus and stayed at the nearby Travelodge," said Mr Bond.
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Comments
Who cares?
Ooh they're DUTCH!
Whwoar, eh? Woargh!
How very British of him, lol.
There must be some correlation between the lack of sex (not getting enough yourself) and being obsessed with the sexual antics of others. It would seem journalists are the majority in this category. They are constantly amazed, agog, horrified and shocked at what citizens get up to, often describing it in terms of depravity and perversion. Therefore journalists must be so hard at work they don't have time for such cavorting (and claiming it on your expenses a mite risky): no, I don't believe it either. but you have to judge them by what they write.
Or could it be that in Holland and Germany, where sex is well organised and stylish, makes the British feel they are being less well served, missing out? Parliament is doing its bit to ensure they are as we know, so journos could argue they are performing a public service in providing a vicarious outlet as are sex columnists and sex diary writers.
I can't imagine the citizenry as a whole think this, as significant numbers of them travel to Germany in particular to savour the wide range of activities available - all of them legal. Even Yanks fly thousands of miles to tour German emporiums. And then share their experiences on the Internet! The attractions are obvious, especially the offer of free wifi for busy executives who wish to catch up with some work in between times.
When it comes to sex Britain I'm afraid lives in a parallel universe of sex by proxy where a plethora of hardcore home grown DVDs are available on the net, newspapers titillate in true Ken Dodd fashion, lawmakers outlaw what they themselves get caught doing and servants must be kept in the dark.
Isn't it time the British got serious about sex and did it properly instead of appearing (if journos are right) to exist in a Carry On film.
I do wonder what this sort of stuff is doing in the Indy though.
I am as interested in other people' sex lives as I am in their toilet habits. It's none of my business.
I challenge you to shout zis in a Cherman accent.
The organizers requested that 'play' occur in only one room (and why did the owner not ask the purpose of the 8 mattresses and beds covered in velvet?) and indeed all revelers stayed within these guidelines.
But it makes for sensational reading and perhaps Mr Bonds wife gave him a bollocking and he needed an alibi,,,
Please
Tom Cruise and Nicol Kidman should apologise for having started this trend. And the film should carry a warning in Britain at least urging adults not to try this sort of thing at home...... or in anyone else's.
They started at midnight and ended at 3am??? what a load of rubbish!
I once had sex with another woman starting at 3pm Friday afternoon and ending at 6pm on Sunday, it was absolutely fantastic, but done in private. I just wouldn't like a quick shag with onlookers, so common.
The midnight mass start was probably instigated to protect the Brits from the side effects of the unusual experience of having three hours of sex. You can't just jump into this kind of thing at the deep end, as you know. Subsequent parties will edge the start time back to the more normal 9 pm watershed.
We work - yet we don't need the money, we love - unafraid by rejection, we dance as if no-one is watching, we screw like we're being filmed, we can drink a true Irishman under the table, we serve ourselves prior to the desperate needs of "lesser-beings".
Apart from liberated, what is it, that we've become?
And usually when most of the guests are women they are more interested in each other than the men. This happens in female dominated situations, the males perform only secondary roles. If you have ever walked through a business or factory mostly consisting of women any man will tell you it is a terrible ego damaging experience!
The Independent takes great care,
Publicizing this sort of debauchery,
The day after the event!
Why wasn't I invited?
I always miss out on this sort of thing.
It's just not fair!!!
So nothing new here, have fun now, pay later...
I personally would be worried about catching something nasty (not talking about swine flu) , I mean do they actually screen punters for STDs, is caution thrown completely to the wind, or is that part of the thrill?
Furthermore another turn off for me is the fact that most swingers I've seen (on tv etc) seem to be a bit on the ugly,fat, sweaty side. Is this perhaps why they wear the masks?
Good luck to them anyway I say. Nice to see someones keeping the British end up wot wot.
You couldn't make it up.
I'm willing to bet that a fair few of those BMWs, Aston Martins and Porches were weekend rental jobs, and that a fair few of those attending lied about their incomes and their jobs to other guests; a veritable blaggers paradise, lol! (But excellent networking opportunities for the genuinely well-healed, I suppose.)
I'm also willing to bet that a high proportion of the guests were at the minging end of the attractiveness spectrum, and paying 65 GBP for entry to a masque-ball orgy is the only way they are ever going to get a shag. But hey, good luck to them...
But what fun,eh?
I'll wager that anybody adult readng about these naughty goings on will harbour the most delicious regrets at not being able to attend "in person" to indulge themselves disgracefully!
Lucky bastards that did manage to raise a cheer that evening (or raise anything else, for that matter).
An envious RiccardoJ, Hampshire.
I guess it is a cultural or governance issue. Whilst changes cannot be just made in law, the "more and more regulation" attitudes by our government blocks any cultural changes that would start to solve some of these now major issues.
Some countries are secular, others have more God fearing people. Obviously the trend is towards a more secular outlook.
Yours 17th-century gardens never were seen these highly improper things. The employees and the owner had to phone the firemen brigade, as was rigth.
An unheard this Mint Tea Hour.
But thinking about it.... £9k to hire the venue, double that as a rough total cost estimate.. £65 a ticket so that's about 300 people to break even.. 8 mattresses in the "love room" and we're told that that was where they were supposed to do their thang. And it was all over in 3 hours. So if they had confined themselves to the mattresses that's 300 people / 8 = 37.5 people per mattress, 180 minutes / 37.5 means each person got a grand total of 4.8 minutes bonking time.
Maybe it was a British orgy after all.