Jeremy Clarkson buys Oxfordshire pub

Jeremy Clarkson has purchased the Windmill restaurant and wedding venue in Burford, Oxfordshire, which he plans to reopen as a pub.   

Writing in his column in the Sunday Times, the motoring journalist claimed he paid “less than £1m” for the site.

He said: “There is some work to be done on the pub itself. For example, the cellar is too small, the gable end is falling down, the outside decking area is dangerous, the water is unfit for human consumption, the loft is full of dead rats and the lavatories are illegal.”

In the meantime, he has promised bar billiards, darts, a table with his name on it, a garden, and a room that can be turned into a clubhouse.

He plans to serve “well-priced, British-grown food with a pint of Hawkstone beer”, which is brewed by Clarkson and the Cotswold Brewing Co.

It comes after Clarkson lost his appeal to turn the Diddly Squat Farm, which featured on the Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm, into a restaurant following opposition from local residents who wrote to West Oxfordshire District Council.

He had announced in 2021 that he was looking to open a restaurant “full of pies and gravy” in his former lambing barn.

Clarkson bought the 1,000-acre farm in 2008 and it was run by a farm manager until 2019, when the presenter took over the site himself.

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