I ate at Jeremy Clarkson’s pub — I could have done with knowing one thing before going

Jeremy Clarkson’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog, has been open for around 10 months and I was dying to see what it was like — but I didn’t know the full story when I arrived

The love I have for Clarkson’s Farm has come as a bit of a shock to me. I’ve never been a fan of Top Gear or Jeremy Clarkson and I’m also one of those people whose default starting position on anything popular is to dislike it.

I ate at Jeremy Clarkson’s pub — I could have done with knowing one thing before going (Image: Steffan Rhys/Jeremy Clarkson)

But the Amazon Prime Video series is a joy. It’s funny, sad, entertaining and informative but I think what I love the most is how passionate the show’s biggest star is about farming and all the highs and lows that come it.

There have been four series of Clarkson’s Farm so far, and there’s a fifth in the works. A major theme of the first three series was Clarkson’s attempt to open a restaurant on Diddly Squat Farm so he could sell the meat he rears and veg he grows (as well as that of surrounding farms). But the infamous West Oxfordshire District Council (as well as some of Clarkson’s neighbours) are having none of it, so he has to give up on that ambition and buys a pub instead.

The result is The Farmer’s Dog about 10 miles south of the farm on the side of the A40 as it winds through the Cotswolds. I booked a table here having watched the first three series and was so excited to get one for Sunday lunch.

But because I hadn’t yet watched series four of Clarkson’s Farm, which focuses on his attempts to buy and open the new pub, I was missing a big chunk of its story. And I wish I’d known about it before setting off — it’s a great story. With Clarkson’s heart set on the pub, which used to be known as The Windmill, he discovered it used to be a “dogging” site. In one episode, Clarkson is left with his head in his hands when his lawyer breaks this news to him on the phone and describes how “we have happened across some quite interesting photographs which capture… certain goings on”.

These photographs concerned the public toilets that were once on the site, where they also learned that holes had been drilled between cubicles (“I don’t think that was to improve ventilation”, says the lawyer). Clarkson heads back to the pub after the call and uncovers further evidence for himself, including a pair or black knickers stuffed in a tree and a condom wrapper. It was seemingly an open secret in the area. A further headache came from the fact that a large part of the site was designated a public picnic area that the pub’s owner could not refuse access to. This made the pub’s story even richer and I valued all the more the effort that went into turning it into what it is now and all the obstacles overcome in the process.

What is the Farmer’s Dog pub really like?

One thing that really seemed to annoy council officials and some neighbours of Clarkson’s original farm shop was the huge number of people visiting, clogging up the surrounding roads and parking on grass verges. So I was expecting it to be busy. But I wasn’t expecting this. It was like a festival.

There was a full-blown security and parking operation guiding arrivals into an enormous adjacent field with hundreds, if not thousands, of cars already parked in it. Visitors streamed like ants in formation between car park and pub and the stunned “bloody hell!” I heard from a fellow visitor pretty much sums up what I was thinking too.

I’d naiively thought that, given I had a lunch reservation (secured easily, though several weeks in advance, on the pub website) it would be a quiet affair. After all, only so many people can fit in a pub, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. The first signs that we were not just out at your average local pub for Sunday lunch came a few hundred yards from our destination when the queues of cars (and motorbikes) started. Stewards in high-vis jackets directed us to the nearby field where, despite the numbers, we got a parking space easily (the queues on the road were short-lived too, to be fair). Once parked, it was a short walk across the road to the pub, which surely has to be the most popular in the country.

There were people everywhere. Dozens of people waited in line to get into the pub (you don’t need to queue if you have a reservation and I was impressed that there was a staff member dedicated to finding those of us who did and ushering us to the front). Presumably, those queuing without a reservation were doing so in the hope of nabbing a table, a pint or a quick photo opp.

We were an hour early for lunch so wandered around the back of the pub to explore the large shop, outdoor bar and huge beer garden. There were thousands of people here, sitting in glorious sunshine on wooden benches or on the grass, enjoying a pint of Clarkson’s own Hawkstone beer and the gorgeous views out over the Cotswolds farmland that the man himself is so taken with.

The shop sells the beer (lager, stout, IPA and cider) in crates and gift packs, as well as jams, marmalades, honey, candles, branded clothes and there’s a butcher too. I came away with a crate of lager (£28 for 12 bottles) and a £12 jar of honey made from the bees on Diddly Squat Farm.

Sunday lunch in The Farmer’s Dog

A few minutes before our 1pm lunch reservation, we headed back to the pub entrance and were quickly directed to head inside and look for a man called John (“he looks like me but he’s bald and he loves Welsh people”, he said, clocking my Welsh accent after the 90-minute drive from Cardiff).

Bald man located easily enough, he showed us to our table, possibly the best in the pub, tucked away on its own in a little corner right by the glass doors that opened out on to the large outside terrace. So not only did we have a view of the whole of the inside, we got the breeze and the sunlight of the outdoors too. Perfect.

Much like Clarkson does on his popular Amazon Prime show (I was now starting to realise just how big it is), the pub is very keen to show off its credentials as a supporter of local farms. A blackboard on the wall names local farmers Vanessa Hartley and Nick Sinden, as well as Rectory Farm, as sources.

We ordered a pint of the Hawkstone Black stout (£7) and a half of the range’s OG, the Hawkstone lager (£3.50). They’re great drinks and we sat and waited for our food by watching staff move purposefully through the busy pub, where there’s not a single spare chair, carrying plates loaded up with generous and delicious-looking Sunday roasts and stepping over the odd dog lying at their owners’ feet. There was a pianist playing a grand piano by the front door, a permanent queue at the bar for a pint and a feelgood buzz running through the whole place — everyone just seemed thrilled to be here, me included.

My starter of cold-smoked Bibury trout (£11.50) was fantastic — generous, thickly-sliced trout packed with flavour and possibly better than any smoked salmon I’ve ever had. I’d been to the Bibury trout farm a short drive away two days earlier, which made it all taste even better somehow, as did the accompanying horseradish cream and watercress salad.

I went for the two-meat main course with beef and pork (£26), which were the only two meat options. It came with roasted whole potatoes (amazing), roasted carrots and parsnips, spring greens, red cabbage, cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire pudding and gravy made from the stout I was drinking. It can be hard to distinguish one well-made Sunday roast from another so I won’t try too hard. This one was generous, tasty and largely faultless (I could probably have done with a drop more of the delicious gravy).

The one-meat option was £2 cheaper than two and there was a vegetarian option of Wye Valley asparagus with pea pearl barley and a poached egg. Vegans might have a problem here, which I’m not sure will bother Clarkson too much.

We were both too full for pudding but we did see an Eton mess (£10.50) and poached rhubarb crumble cake with Cotswolds ice cream (£10.50) being carried past. Both looked great.

We were pretty much done with our food within the hour and the bill for two main courses, one starter and two drinks came to £80 (including service). Before leaving, I just wanted to soak in a bit more of the venue so took a look upstairs (also full, of course) and spotted the full-size tractor hanging from the ceiling above the pianist, which I’d somehow managed to miss on the way in.

Final thoughts

I’ve talked a lot about how busy the pub (and the whole site) was. Jeremy Clarkson and Amazon Prime have created a phenomenon. But don’t let that put you off. The queue for the car park was no more than a few minutes at most and that was the only waiting we did. Thanks to our reservation, we were straight in through the front door and we didn’t need to queue at the shop for our beer and honey either. My over-riding impression of the huge crowd was how happy we all were to be there. If you wanted a beer (inside or outside) or something from the butcher, you should probably expect a queue, but that’s pretty much it.

I felt a bit guilty about being one of the hordes of people taking over what was presumably a quiet and anonymous part of Oxfordshire 12 months ago, but reports suggest most people in the area are happy to have the pub so consider me guilt-free now.

I’m glad I went and will remember it for a long time. Pubs aren’t only about food, they’re about how they make you feel. And I loved every second of this trip. If it had been hammering down with rain, I might feel differently — but that’s just Britain, isn’t it?