Is Clarkson swapping Top Gear for Top Beer?
HE HAS helped transform views of agriculture with his hit television show Clarkson’s Farm. Now could Jeremy Clarkson now be about to do the same for the beleaguered pub trade?
I ask because the petrolhead is said to be involved in negotiations about buying a tavern in the Cotswolds.
The former Top Gear presenter is understood to be interested in snapping up the Coach and Horses Inn, in Bourton- on-theWater, a picture-postcard village in Gloucestershire.
The 18th century, grade II-listed building is a stone’s throw away from Hawkstone Brewery, where beer is produced using malted barley from Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire. The talks are believed to be ahead of submitting a formal planning application to Cotswold District Council.
A source claims Clarkson is interested in expanding the site and is having initial discussions about any highways implications his plans would have.
‘There’s stuff swirling around,’ another source says. ‘He owns Hawkstone Brewery just outside of Bourton and there is some discussion about planning applications with Cotswold District Council. He has been in talks about that, but it has not got to the stage of a planning application yet. It’s very early days.’
There have been issues with the local council over traffic and development at his Diddly Squat Farm Shop in Chadlington.
Clarkson named it Diddly Squat because ‘that’s how much you make from farming’.
But since Amazon Prime started broadcasting Clarkson’s Farm, about his efforts at Diddly Squat, the shop has become a multi-million pound business. It’s hugely popular with visiting fans, but less so with some neighbours who complain about the increase in traffic.
When I ring Clarkson about the pub plans, he’s unusually reticent, joking: ‘I’m now “in talks” with my waiter about what to have for lunch...’