UK’s most off-grid community is hidden deep in ‘magic’ woods where locals make cider for cash & have NO bills to pay
A FAMILY have sacrificed their two businesses and annual holidays abroad to live off-grid in a woodland community in Somerset.
The Tizards have swapped their five-bedroom home with an indoor loo and washing machine to live in the Tinkers Bubble commune – where they make cider for cash and have no bills to pay.
Living at the top of a very steep hill, the 14 residents at Tinkers Bubble also grow their own food in the woods and rely on 19th-century technology to survive.
Among 40 acres of woodland near Norton-sub Hamdon, Yeovil, neighbours till the land using horses and a Victorian plough and saw timber using a 1930s steam engine.
The commune is powered by solar powered 12v electricity and they burn wood to cook food and heat their own bathhouse.
Each day, a family member is assigned to be in charge of the kitchen and cook for everyone else.
A rounded thatched building is the meeting point where everyone at Tinkers Bubble gathers to dine, play and socialise.
Residents pay around £120 per month which covers the commune’s costs.
Mum-of-five Kirsty Tizard said she wanted a simpler life for her family and feels she’s escaped the stresses that money can bring.
“We were earning enough money to be comfortable. We had holidays once or twice a year, Christmas was always quite affluent,” she told Channel 4.
“But, I don’t know, it just felt like we were constantly working in order to earn more.
“We’ve chosen to remove ourselves from the loop of constantly trying to earn enough money to survive in the world.
“We don’t need money here and we have community here.”
Kirsty had previously told the BBC she and husband Nick had a very hectic life running their businesses.
The dad said: “Over a long period of time I started feeling fairly guilty about consumption of things, of stuff that we buy constantly that we don’t necessarily need.
“Christmases get fairly raucous, we used to buy them lots of presents and I just started to become aware of the wastage that we get from everything that we buy.
Nick and Kirsty’s children have taken to the change and have joined the local school.
However, Kirsty said: “We’ve got one daughter who’s a bit of a townie.
“She’s said ‘mummy I can see that this is totally the way for you to live but I want a toilet with walls!'”
Meanwhile in Canada, a couple spent 27 years building their own floating man-made island home, growing their own food and building their own supplies.
Wayne Adams and Catherine King have spent over £1million building Freedom Cove, located on the coast of Vancouver Island.
The project started with a small float home that was built using wood that had washed ashore after a storm – before replacing the rotting timber with old fishing kit.
Wayne and Catherine moved into the cove in 1992 and have been building their self-sufficient home ever since.
“When we first started, the first thing of course was to have a roof over our head,” Catherine told the FLORB YouTube channel.
“So we built the house which was half the size of what it is now.”
Over more than two decades, they’ve gradually added new buildings, greenhouses, and an outdoor dance floor.
Now, the couple created a fully off-grid, floating homestead where they can grow most of their own food and earn a living as artists.
