My experience of meeting Jeremy Clarkson and visiting his farm

From ‘Bee Juice’ to ‘Diddly Squat Farm T-shirts’ Clarkson’s increasingly popular farm has it all.

Me and my friends at the farm on July 4th

After watching ‘Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm’ on Amazon Prime, I knew I needed to go to his farm. I begged my friends to come with me, and because they’d also seen the series, they were as keen as I was to go. The prime series is about Clarkson learning how to run his own farm with the help of others such as Caleb, who I find very funny. The series also features Clarkson building a farm shop which is open to the public. They sell produce from the farm, surrounding farms, and sell ‘Diddly Squat Farm’ merchandise.

The drive from Cheltenham to Chipping Norton is a pretty drive through the Cotswolds which only took around 50 minutes. The roads were quiet until we started getting closer. Recently there have been complaints from nearby villagers who aren’t happy about the disturbance of traffic. I presumed that cars would be queued up all down the road, but they weren’t. Although the roads seemed busier than they usually would be in the peaceful Cotswolds, I thought it would be worse. But that’s only my opinion, coming from someone who doesn’t live there.

The queues at the farm

It was strange seeing the farm shop in person after watching the series. It’s a small shop with an open barn attached to it which has been turned into an outdoor bar. There were two queues, one leading to the merchandise stand, and one leading to the farm shop. After half an hour of queuing for the merchandise stand, we were told that we might not make it before they shut for the day.

Diddly Squat Merchandise stand

We decided to wait anyway because just being there was fun. Eventually however after around 90 minutes, we did make it to the merchandise stand and I bought a ‘Diddly Squat Farm Beanie’ and ‘Bee Juice’ (honey) which cost around £34 altogether. There was a good range of merchandise such as T-shirts, bags, and candles. We didn’t have chance to go into the farm shop as it closed before we could.

After this, we decided to use the ‘Cow Juice’ machine outside the farm shop which basically spits out milk that you can put into a carton and take home. I’d never seen anything like it before and I feel like it added to the character of the farm.

Before leaving, we went around the back of the shop where the bar was. We were contemplating buying a drink when Jeremy Clarkson appeared. I had heard stories of him being there often, but I didn’t imagine that I’d see him. He sat down with what appeared to be a pint with his girlfriend Lisa and some others. We decided not to disturb him, but we ordered ourselves a couple of drinks. We wanted to talk to Clarkson, but didn’t want to be rude and disturb him, so we enjoyed our pints.

After a while, Clarkson stood up and we saw a perfect opportunity to go over and talk to him. I started off by telling him that I loved the Prime series and he explained that running a farm has been difficult and he’s still learning. Now confirmed, he told us that a possible series two also might be in the works, but it would take two years to make. He went on to discuss that he doesn’t know if he should stay in The Cotswolds or move back to London, but he loves waking up to the Cotswold views every day. 

Me talking to Jeremy. (Photo credit to Keiron Gilbert.)

He also explained which parts of land behind him were owned by him and told us that there was a bunch of trees which was used to harvest wood that was used against the Spanish Armada. He went on to say that another part of the forest had artefacts discovered there from the Neolithic period. After my friend Keiron asked, Clarkson explained that this is a period of time at the end of the stone age. 

Clarkson seemed very calm and was willing to talk to the people who spoke to him. We talked to him for a while, and it was nice that he took time out of his day to chat to us. I think it’s absolutely worth visiting The Diddly Squat Farm shop. It’s a nice day out, and you might even get to meet Jeremy Clarkson himself.