Running a farm is a notoriously tough gig. Increasingly unpredictable British seasons, the loss of subsidies from the EU since Brexit, ever-increasing running costs and competition from cheaper produce overseas have made farming even more challenging than the back-breaking labour would imply.
Undeterred, former city slicker Jeremy Clarkson, also formerly of Top Gear and The Grand Tour, has thrown himself head-first into the profession and learned first-hand how incredibly tough it is to turn a profit as a farmer.
With three seasons of Amazon Prime hit Clarkson’s Farm behind him, Clarkson doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson in terms of hard-as-nails pastoral pastimes: as of August 2024, he’s opened his own village pub.
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The Farmer’s Dog, located in Asthall near Burford, opened its doors last summer to queues of excited patrons and appears to have stayed busy since.
However, as is documented in the currently-airing season four of Clarkson’s Farm, even the magnetism offered by Clarkson’s star power can’t insulate the presenter and his team from the myriad nightmares you can expect as a publican.
After telling viewers that he’s been ‘losing sleep’ over the challenges of running a pub, he enlisted some support from celebrity friends and rivals in the shape of James May, James Blunt, Guy Ritchie and a man whom he once famously punched in 2004: Piers Morgan.
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Each of these famous pals have run their own pubs, with Morgan saying a major thing to watch out for is glassware theft.
"People steal stuff from pubs," the presenter, who bought the Hansom Cab pub in Kensington, West London, back in 2010, said.
"Every publican will tell you. They'll nick the salt and pepper pots. They'll nick knives and forks. They might even nick plates. They'll nick any art they can rip off the walls."
James Blunt - the proud owner of The Fox and Pheasant in Chelsea, meanwhile, warned about the prevalence of drink driving associated with countryside pubs.
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For Clarkson, the main problem came down to costs.
“My dream of owning a pub and opening it by the bank holiday is slipping away,” he told viewers in an episode of the show filmed before the pub’s opening.
“I thought I’d put a new bar in and open it up,” continued. “My notion of opening the pub for £25,000 was massively wide of the mark.
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To open the pub, Clarkson forked out £40,000 for new decking, along with another £40,000 for new furniture and £35,000 to refit the kitchen. Toilet renovations cost a princely £100,000, and the roof also needed £150,000’s worth of work.
Ouch! Good job he’s a multi-millionaire TV presenter, eh?
Ritchie and May were well-versed in such cost pressures, with the former noting: “It looks like you’re making £50,00 a week, but then it transpires you are losing £10,000 a week.”
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Season four of Clarkson’s farm is now available on Amazon Prime, with the last two episodes set to drop on June 6th 2025.
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film
Rachael Davis