When Jeremy Clarkson decided to buy a pub, he knew nothing about running one.
‘Still don’t!’ he says, waving a bottle of his own Hawkstone lager around as he addresses the crowds at the official opening of The Farmer’s Dog, his brand new all-British pub serving all-British produce – right down to expensive home-grown black peppercorns and Cornish tea. (But the British Prime Minister won’t be there. Sir Keir Starmer, apparently, is barred.)
‘I don’t understand business plans. And so many things. Yesterday we had a soft opening and someone managed to smash the lavatory door.’
But he did have some very strict criteria when he snapped up this sprawling pub, with a terrace and five acres, just off a roundabout on the A40 near Burford.
‘We needed a big car-park,’ he says. ‘Lots of parking and no little roads to get to it: no one to annoy.’
Which was a good thing, because by 9.30am yesterday, three-and-a-half hours before the grand opening, the first car-park was full, the second was teeming and stewards were directing visitors to the third ‘overflow’ car-park for another 2,000 vehicles across the road.
People queuing outside at the opening of Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub, The Farmer’s Dog, in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire
Jeremy Clarkson opens his new pub to the public
The Farmer’s Dog pub is located in Burford, Wiltshire
But of course they were! Clarkson had announced the surprise opening to his eight million followers on social media earlier this week, declared that it would be first-come, first-served and flung open the doors, as the locals braced themselves for the ‘Clarkson effect’ once again.
‘It’ll be chaos. Mayhem!’ says Judith, 54, from Charlbury. ‘They’ll come from everywhere again – hundreds of miles away.’
Which might sound a teeny bit unwelcoming, but Clarkson does have history.
In the wake of the success of his phenomenally popular TV series, Clarkson’s Farm, Jeremy’s Diddly Squat farm shop, barely ten miles away, turned the area into gridlock as thousands of fans drove hundreds of miles and queued for hours for the chance to spend £22 on one of his special ‘smells like my b******s’ scented candles, £9 for a wooden spoon or £4.50 on a pat of butter.
Which means that, this time, it really had to be different. Organised. Orderly. Slick.
So it might have seemed a bit worrying that, two hours before yesterday’s grand opening, workmen were still putting the finishing touches to the pub sign – a fox red Labrador, modelled on one of Jeremy dogs. Delivery drivers were frantically unloading boxes. Beer kegs were being rolled in. Vast trays of meat joints were being carted through and film crew members were marching about importantly.
Jeremy welcomes members of the public into his new establishment
Jane Fryer pictured with Jeremy Clarkson at the opening of his new pub The Farmer’s Dog
A menu board of dishes available at The Farmer’s Dog boasts all dishes as being made with British Ingredients
Clarkson’s Farm star Gerald Cooper arrives at the opening of The Farmer’s Dog
At least the punters were ready. Many of them had been up at dawn, driven for hours, queuing even longer – and very happy they were about it, too, hoping to meet their hero.
Right in front, here since 8am, were Lauren, Blake, Jack and Rachel from London, already on the Hawkstone lager, bought from the marquee in the pub garden.
‘It’s five o’clock somewhere! Halves only, though, we’re pacing ourselves,’ cries Jack, who adores Jeremy – ‘We love him. He speaks the truth, he always has’ – and has a lot to say about his recent experience at the Diddly Squat farm shop. ‘I think I was in the queue for three or four hours. Worth it, though. I bought a genuine leather key ring, for about eight quid.’
Behind him, Steve a lorry driver from Walsall, pipes up. ‘We spent more than a hundred quid on a book, a few little bits and bobs for my mum who adores him.’
Some visitors are middle-aged men like Wayne, a builder from Kent here with his French bulldog Margo, and already wearing a brand new £60 ‘Farmer’s Dog’ sweatshirt. They all enjoyed Top Gear and The Grand Tour – what Clarkson refers to as his ‘driving round corners and shouting at things’ years.
But most are here because of Clarkson’s Farm. Whole families who devoured its three series adored Caleb and ‘cheerful’ Charlie, but most of all Jeremy, who brilliantly entertained them with his swearing and mishaps and general anguish – and opened their eyes to farming.
Clarkson’s Farm star Caleb Cooper takes selfies with fans at the opening of The Farmer’s Dog
Jeremy pictured with his wife Lisa at the opening
‘He’s done a lot more for farming than Countryfile,’ declares Andy Card, a builder from Kent clutching a 10am pint of cider.
And love him or loathe him, Clarkson really has. Exposing the difficulties of this important work. Highlighting the suicide rate – worse than any other industry. The low wages, loneliness, endless worries about the cost of fuel, seed and sodden Octobers. Then in 2021, already up to his neck in farming, Clarkson dipped into lager. Again insisting he knew nothing, he teamed up with the tiny Cotswolds Brewing Company and came up with Hawkstone – named after a local Neolithic stone. Again, it turned to gold.
Today it is the fastest growing privately owned brewery in the UK, and the beer is stocked in more than 200 pubs. Last week, Elon Musk was spotted drinking it on a yacht in the Med.
And now pubs.
Partly, he insists, he has opened this place because he wants to put the fun back into the British pub. Real beer. Bar billiards. Proper pub food for normal people – gammon steaks, sausages, a carvery – not an easy thing to find in the Cotswolds. But perhaps more so because his plans to run a restaurant in a barn on his field were thwarted by the local authority after all that mayhem.
People queuing outside at the opening of Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub, The Farmer’s Dog
Naturally there have been endless problems – perfect for a TV show.
Damp, rats in the attic, a broken gable, a tiny cellar, illegal loos, planning issues. It turned out that the pub was also right next to a very popular local dogging site.
Happily today that’s all a distant memory. The gable’s fixed. The rats are gone. The doggers have (presumably) been despatched. And, miraculously, the pub is opening months ahead of schedule – hard to think of anything less British than that.
At exactly midday, out pops Jeremy in his terrible old dad jeans, crumpled shirt and very red face, and shouts: ‘We’re open. Also, we’re not late!’
Lucky guests who managed to get seated enjoying food and drinks on the terrace
Jeremy Clarkson carrying mushrooms at the opening of his new pub
And oh so slowly, the front of the queue begins to move into the pub. To fill up the galleried bar, admire the flower display on the piano and the rough stone walls, but most of all to crane and strain for a bit more of Jeremy, who is outside chatting and joking and swearing and shaking hands.
Young kids race up and plead for selfies. Clusters of fluttery women in their 60s check their makeup. A trio of Chinese students studying at Oxford and Cambridge are enthralled. ‘We don’t have anything like Jeremy in China! This is the most exciting thing happening this weekend. We are going to order the Lancashire hotpot.’
If they ever get served, that is. There are no guarantees because, today, there are no reserved tables. Everyone queues.
So I give up on lunch altogether and instead join Sue and Craig and their son Mark from Coventry – ‘we left at dawn’ – on the lawn and, as my tummy rumbles, we admire the magnificent view.
As we sit in our thoughtfully placed deckchairs, I listen to the sound that will keep Clarkson and the local council very, very happy.
Not birdsong, the chatter of happy customers, or the tap-tap-tap of credit cards. But the steady hum of free-flowing traffic on the A40. No jams, no queues. No gridlock.