Jeremy Clarkson made a shocking admission about “losing a fortune” during the renovations of his Cotswolds pub.
Jeremy Clarkson let viewers into his life in 2021 as he embarked on the complicated journey of running a successful farm with no prior experience. For the past four years, the presenter has fronted his Amazon Prime series, Clarkson’s Farm, which follows the often tedious work of transforming the Chadlington Diddly Squat Farm, which he initially purchased in 2008. Alongside dealing with farm animals and crops, Jeremy also decided to expand his portfolio by buying The Windmill near Burford for around £1million.
While the project didn’t warrant a spin-off series, the Top Gear star eventually renovated the pub and renamed it The Farmer’s Dog, opening the doors to the public in August of 2024. However, in his new book, Diddly Squat: The Farmer’s Dog, the 65-year-old made a shocking admission about the devastating blow he dealt with during the building’s overhaul and confessed that it was a “total disaster.”
Jeremy added that although the staff are “happy”, the Cotswolds watering hole was losing him a staggering “fortune”.
In his book, the star penned: “Behind the scenes, then, everything is a total disaster.
“But the fact is that when you go to the pub, you just wouldn’t know. We had a top chef round the other day.
“I won’t say who, just that his name begins with an M and ends with an ’arco Pierre White’, and he was bowled over by how good the food is.”
The TV presenter went on: “And it’s warm, and there’s a fire, and the staff are friendly and young and happy. It’s a proper, traditional pub.
“By which I mean you’ll love it, and I’ll lose a fortune and develop a skin disease from the stress of running it.”
In a 2024 column for The Sunday Times, Jeremy opened up about the reality of owning a pub amid the rising rates to own a business.
He shared: “I’d heard of course that two pubs a day are closing in the UK and that 10,000 have gone since we all met up in the year 2000.”
“And I’d been warned about the difficulty of making money if I stuck to a strict British-food-only policy.
“But all of this advice, along with stern warnings about theft and the difficulties of finding staff in a post-Brexit world, had gone in one ear and out of the other. It’d all be fine. I knew it,” the farmer added.
