It’s said that a church can only be considered a “megachurch” when it easily and regularly commands a congregation of more than 2,000 worshippers.
Turning to cast an eye over the seemingly never-ending queue of devotees that snaked from the front door of the Cotswolds’ newest pub – or “filling station”, as its landlord is calling it – on Friday morning, it was clear that for The Cult of Clarkson, that designation doesn’t go nearly far enough. Their idol was opening a new temple; and boy were the masses thirsty to try it.
“We’ve come from Langport, in Somerset. We got up at 6am to be here. We were never going to miss it, we just love Jeremy,” says Chelsea Wills-Lock, 32, a finance manager. The first punters had arrived at The Farmer’s Dog from well before 8am on Friday morning. By 9am, there were hundreds. By 11am, an hour before the doors were unlocked, the queue seemed to stretch back halfway to Swindon.
Team Clarkson were hardly unprepared: high-vis’d security teemed around to help with parking. An Amazon Prime filming crew were in place. And to entertain the acolytes, a new farm shop, an off-shoot of the main Diddly Squat emporium at Clarkson’s farm, some 10 miles away in Chadlington, was up and running from the crack of dawn, serving pints, fresh produce and merch in the marquee normally seen in The Grand Tour, Clarkson’s other show on Prime.
Wills-Lock had come with her husband, Ollie, plus her uncle, Andy Card, and his wife Louise. “I was always a fan of Clarkson’s, but I think he’s helped the farming industry so much, to show the struggles they go through and how councils don’t help. He should be so proud of that, I’ve learned loads from it. Hopefully he’ll do the same for the pub industry now.” They visited the farm shop last year, queueing for 3.5 hours to buy a few bits.