Nothing seems as peaceful as Chadlington, a village next to Chipping Norton in the county of Oxfordshire. This protected natural area in the Cotswolds, 180 kilometers west of London, is popular for its high hedges and cleverly placed stone walls, its rolling fields and meadows alongside woods with abundant wildlife.
Since 2020, the Amazon Prime Video platform has been filming “La Ferme de Clarkson” there and then broadcasting it worldwide. In this reality TV show, star host Jeremy Clarkson manages his own farm on a daily basis. It is not a Potemkin farm, but 312 hectares that would make any Beauceron farmer green with envy.
These days, the Briton is keeping a low profile. Jeremy Clarkson came close to having a heart attack and has just had two stents installed (a surgical device to prevent blockage of the arteries), according to The Sun which dedicated its front page to him on October 27. This 64-year-old heavy drinker and eater should change his lifestyle, his doctor explained to him. “My advice is to press on the gas until the fuel runs out,” he retorted in the tabloid. In the meantime, and for four years, thousands of fans of the series have visited his immense farm every day, in a sort of cathodic pilgrimage.
Jeremy Clarkson acquired this arable land in 2008, while he was hosting the eleventh season of “Top Gear”, a show devoted to the world’s biggest car industry on BBC Two. With two swaggering sidekicks, he tested cars and ordinary cars on the circuit. But, in 2015, here he was fired for hitting an assistant because a dinner was too cold. A petition signed by a million fans, delivered on a real tank to the headquarters of public television, changed nothing. Recruited in 2016 by Jeff Bezos for 189 million euros, Jeremy Clarkson and his two teammates joined Amazon Prime Video and created “The Grand Tour” in 2016, strongly inspired by “Top Gear”. The final episode, a road trip through Zimbabwe, aired on September 13, 2024.
Pork, sheep and potatoes
At the same time, when, in 2019, the farmer to whom he rented his fields retired, Jeremy Clarkson decided to take over. He then bought a Lamborghini tractor, hired an intrepid farm worker, Kaleb Cooper, appointed a safety manager with a strong dialect, Gerald Cooper (no relation), and filming of his series on the farm began the following year .
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