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Jeremy Clarkson is busy welcoming guests to his pub, The Farmer’s Dog, but has predicted only one of his Grand Tour colleagues will pay him a visit.
Hundreds of people were seen queuing outside the presenter’s new watering hole in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire, as it opened to the public for the first time on Friday (23 August).
The venture is an expansion of Clarkson’s Diddly Squat farm project, which has been explored in his Prime Video series, Clarkson’s Farm, since 2021.
“I think we’ll probably finish filming season four in a couple of weeks, edit that (and) translate it, get it out maybe (in) May, and then we’ll start filming season five pretty soon,” he told Cathy Newman on Times Radio.
Considering whether his former Top Gear and The Grand Tour co-stars Richard Hammond and James May might make a trip to his pub, he said: “James probably won’t, but Richard will.
“I talked to Richard only yesterday. We’re mates and we’ll still see them,” he added.
Before buying his farm, Clarkson was known for co-hosting BBC motoring programme Top Gear, alongside May and Hammond, until 2015 when he was sacked for assaulting one of the show’s producers.
Clarkson, May and Hammond were then snapped up by Amazon for their Prime Video series, The Grand Tour, which recently concluded filming its final season.
Reflecting on the show’s forthcoming finale, Clarkson said: “I think it was emotional, but the weird thing is... who am I saying goodbye to because we use exactly the same crews and producers on the farm show as we do on the cars show?
“So I basically said, ‘well, that’s it everyone, see you Monday on the farm’.”
Asked if he will miss May and Hammond, he said: “I can see them whenever I want. We couldn’t possibly have imagined we’d be together 22 years when we started out.
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“And so it’s a wrench, thinking, ‘God, we’re never going to do that again’. But by the same token, I don’t have to go through Terminal 5 (of Heathrow airport) quite so often.”
Clarkson has said he plans to sell his own Hawkstone lager as well as produce reared on his nearby farm at the new pub.
He has faced some pushback from locals in the West Oxfordshire area over the years, while trying to expand his Diddly Squat farm project.
Some residents have expressed concerns about traffic problems because the pub is located next to the busy A40 road.
Prime Video announced the release date for the final season of The Grand Tour earlier this week.
