It looks like we’ve got a taste of what we’re in for in the next series of Clarkson’s Farm, as Jeremy Clarkson shares news of his purchase of a £1 million pub, The Windmill, in his Sunday Times column—despite friends warning him about the challenges of owning a pub.
The star joked in his article that one friend had said, “Owning a pub these days is even more daft than owning a farm,” despite Clarkson admitting, “But there’s something inside a man that causes him to think, when he has the means, it’d be nice to buy the village boozer.”
The real reason behind Clarkson’s purchase has more to do with his failure to get permission to open a restaurant on his Diddly Squat farm. He plans to sell his own beer on draught there as well as offering products from the Diddly Squat Farm.
In addition to the farming aspect of his business venture, Clarkson also discussed interesting ideas, including “a room I could turn into a clubhouse, which, on wet weekdays, would provide a mental health forum and a free pint for the nation’s farmers,” and “I wanted dogs and families round the fire. And a restaurant where absolutely everything had been grown or reared in Britain.”
Unlike most of Clarkson’s other schemes, West Oxfordshire District Council seems to be on board with Clarkson’s plans to refurbish and take over the pub in question. Clarkson has said that touches such as the cellar, gable ends, and outside deck area might be completed in time for the pub to open by winter this year.
It’s not clear yet whether Clarkson will deal with the trials and tribulations of owning a pub in his Prime Video series Clarkson’s Farm or whether he will just write about it in his column—only time will tell.
Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, chef Tom Kerridge, who knows a few things about running a successful pub, said: “I’m very pleased that Jeremy’s taken that on because what he did for British farming, he showed actually how difficult it was and how hard it was to make it work.
“This will be another opportunity for us and the rest of the UK to see how difficult it is to run a pub because he will come up against the issues and the problems that there are and talk about it and use his voice for good reason.”
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