A community of like-minded individuals have been quietly living in a gated estate just off the M25 for almost 100 years – and doing it all without clothes.
Spielplatz was established in 1929, and is home to 50 naturists who prefer to spend their time naked.
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The gated community near Bricket Wood in Hertfordshire, is a place where nudity is completely accepted as the norm, reports HertfordshireLive.
Resident Tom Dyrer-Beers estimates there are 50 people living there.
Camping at Spielplatz in the summer (Image: spielplatz.co.uk)
Tom said: “We tend to stay rather quiet. But among other naturists, it’s fantastic, because we just relate to each other without any problems.”
Tom, who is from Pennsylvania, first found an interest in naturism when he started modelling for life drawing classes and his future wife Victoria attended one of those sessions.
Victoria has been drawing bodies since she was 16 and she is very comfortable with the human form. Yet she wasn’t so confident with her own body, and it was Tom who slowly piqued her interest in naturism.
Victoria doing the gardening in the nude (Image: Family photo)
“Tom is so passionate about it,” Victoria says. “I think it took me a bit longer because society doesn’t see it as a normal thing. As a woman, society makes you so body aware. When you become a naturist, you realise that’s all irrelevant. It’s amazing.”
“You realise that bodies go through different stages. This idea of the ‘body beautiful’ is ridiculous. It makes a mockery of it. I just wish that other people could see that. Lots of people don’t have the right idea about places like this. I just don’t understand it.
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“When you see people with no clothes on, it’s like: ‘Oh, that’s that.’ You have to concentrate on who they are as a person, and that is what becomes the most important thing. There’s no clothes to say where you are in society, or what group you belong to. It’s just you as a person.”
Tom is passionate about naturism (Image: Family picture)
Tom said: “If you get used to seeing people as they are, it’s a whole different story.”
Spielplatz was founded in 1929 by Charles and Dorothy Macaskie and is the UK’s longest running naturist resort. It is also the only residential naturist community in the country, where nudists live together.
In 1957 the documentary series Out of Step on ITV, the investigative reporter Dan Farson visited Spielplatz and interviewed Charles and Dorothy and their daughter Iseult. It is believed the programme was the first time a naked woman had been seen on British television.
Iseult Kelly, the daughter of Charles and Dorothy Macaskie, the founders of Spielplatz (Image: spielplatz.co.uk)
“When Victoria and I met,” Tom explains, “I said: ‘Let’s go and experience this.’ So we came in a very wet and rainy February, and visited and stayed in one of the cabins just up the way. And though there wasn’t much niceness about the weather, there were some very nice people.
“We thought, well, maybe we’ll take the advice and we need to come back when it’s warmer. And we did that. And we noticed at the time that this property was starting to be built. And I said to Victoria: ‘We might really want to consider this.'”
Around 50 people have made a home for themselves at Spielplatz (Image: spielplatz.co.uk)
Spielplatz is the German word for ‘playground’, and it was established by naturists as a place of retreat.
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Even now, when the site is closed to visitors for the cold winter months, there are signs of its bustling life.
There is a clubhouse, which is the hub for social gatherings, a children’s playground, hot tubs and a swimming pool, a basketball court and camping grounds.
Spielplatz has a beautiful swimming pool (Image: spielplatz.co.uk)
“As a community,” Tom says, “there is a real spirit of wanting to be here, getting together, just enjoying social nudity. It’s a real cult of sunshine when it’s out, which is lovely. And of course, that’s physically really good for you as well.”
The gated community is minutes from the M25 and not far from either St Albans or Watford. But Tom and Victoria say that few people seem to have heard about Spielplatz in the local area, in spite of it being so famous in the naturist community.
Tom said: “There are a surprising number of residents in Bricket Wood who have no idea that it is here. But that is about to change.”
British Naturists, a members organisation for naturists, has taken over the property next to Spielplatz. The site has been a members’ club for as long as Spielplatz has existed, but its activity was in decline. It is being redeveloped in the hope that it will become a hub for naturists in the London area.
Naturists from across the country come to enjoy Spielplatz’ facilities (Image: spielplatz.co.uk)
Tom said: “It used to be that parliamentarians from the 30s, 40s and 50s came up here regularly as a way to escape the press and just relax and enjoy themselves.
“George Bernard Shaw was a visitor and wrote about his experiences here. All kinds of things have taken place that have been slowly lost over the decades. Back in the 50s, there would be several hundreds of people here camping and experiencing [naturism] on a warm summer day.”
Asked what the community at Spielplatz can teach the rest of the world, Tom said: “I don’t think Spielplatz or its members particularly seek to teach anyone anything. They would like to feel accepted by more people, and they would like to feel that the experience and the joy they share in naturism and nudity would be experienced by more.
“If there was a message that Spielplatz helps to embody (no pun intended), it would be that there’s a lot of respect that can be learned from sharing social nudity.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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