Jeremy Clarkson reveals plans for his Cotswolds pub - including all-British ingredients, bar billiards, dominoes and darts... as well as a ban on noisy TVs, fruit machines and confusing toilet signs
- Clarkson described horrors of buying a pub - and ambitions plans for its future
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed his grand plans for a historic Cotswolds pub as he sets his sights on a new adventure on the back of the success of 'Clarkson's Farm'.
The television presenter, 64, paid 'less than £1million' for The Windmill, an elegant and highly-rated establishment near Burford, Oxfordshire - and now hopes to make his mark with all-British ingredients and bar games, as well as a ban on noisy TVs, fruit machines and 'confusing' toilet signs.
Years in the making, the Windmill of old boasts glowing reviews and affordable prices, self-described as a 'magical Oxfordshire wedding and event venue in the heart of the Cotswolds' before announcing it was 'under new ownership' on June 4.
Despite early challenges finding staff 'thanks to Brexit' and teething problems with a 'loft full of dead rats' and 'illegal' lavatories, Clarkson remains committed to getting the place back up and running promptly - writing in The Sunday Times that he still has a wedding reception to host 'in a couple of weeks' time'.
His friends are less convinced he is up to the challenge, however, warning the Grand Tour presenter the 'evidence [suggests] it will be a total disaster'.
'As one friend put it: “Owning a pub these days is even more daft than owning a farm. What’s next? You buying a cinema?”' Clarkson wrote in the newspaper.
Still, the veteran journalist has gone from strength to strength in recent months as part-owner of the Cotswold brewer that makes his Hawkstone lager, added to his growing portfolio in 2021 and harnessing barley grown on his nearby Diddly Squat farm.
The next step, he wrote, was a place where he could sell 'all that we make' on the farm - and his own lager in the taps.
'I just needed the pub where all this could happen,' Clarkson wrote in The Sunday Times. 'And then, after I'd looked about about 14,000, I found just the place.'
He wrote that after buying The Windmill he discovered that there was 'a famous dogging site in the area'.
'I went to see West Oxfordshire district council, expecting no help at all, and blow me down, it was very happy to close the dogging site. So I was in business.'
The former Top Gear presenter said he envisions a 'fun' and homely pub with bar billiards, darts and a garden - and a place he can go on a Sunday with his granddaughter for gammon, egg and chips.
'Well-priced, British-grown food with a pint of Hawkstone beer,' he suggested in another gentle plug for his own brew.
Clarkson described the difficulty he had had finding the right pub before settling on The Windmill.
He 'obviously' could not buy his village pub - as 'the locals would set fire to me'.
Others came with extra baggage; one, he said, had been a county lines meth lab.
It was reported earlier this month villagers had raised concerns their 'Venice of the Cotswolds' could be swamped by visitors if he bought the Grade II listed Coach & Horses Inn in Gloucestershire.
It came after huge queues amassed around Clarkson's Diddly Squat farm near Chipping Norton, just a 20 minute drive from the pub, after the shop reopened in May.
Avid watchers of the show descended on the former Top Gear star's farm from the United States, Wales and Germany to celebrate the new release of the hotly-awaited third season.
A police van parked up outside the Cotswolds farm at the start of the month as some customers were told they wouldn't be able to enter an already packed car park.
The popular farming show sees the former Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter, 64, wrestle with the daily challenges of running his 1,000 acre Diddly Squat Farm.
Series one and two, which released in June 2021 and February 2023, respectively, were are an instant hit with audiences across the UK, who were delighted by the array of quirky characters and comical calamities throughout.
The purchase of the pub in Oxfordshire ties together his ventures into farming and brewing, with his Hawkstone lager using barley grown at Diddly Squat.
Clarkson teamed up with the family-owned Cotswold Brewing Company in 2021 to launch Hawkstone just ten miles away from his farm.
The beer brand was named the fastest-growing privately owned brewery in Britain soon after, with sales reaching £7.8million a year by March.
Clarkson shared ambitious plans to carry on - aiming for his lager to be available in '200,000 pubs, stretching all the way from the Pacific Northwest to Brisbane'.
