Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that Christmas at his pub “is a total disaster” after it was hit by theft, high parking charges and toilet mishaps. The Farmer’s Dog in Asthall, near Burford in Oxfordshire, reopened to the public on August 23 after being rebranded and hundreds queued for the doors to open on the first day of trading.
Writing in the Times, Mr Clarkson has described how he was “naive” to buy the Cotswolds pub and has been left dealing with a string of unexpected setbacks. But while there are plenty of customers, Mr Clarkson has warned that turning their visits into a profit is “nigh-on impossible”.
He explained how the pub has been hit by unexpected costs, from parking charges to clearing up toilet mishaps. The 64-year-old said the pub is forced to spend £27,000 a month on parking and traffic marshals “to keep the council off our back”. The broadcaster, prone to hyperbole, also described how in one case recently “chemically trained hazmat engineers had to be employed” to handle a bathroom disaster in one of the pub’s outdoor loos.
He explained: “One of the girls who works on the site called me and for several minutes made retching noises down the phone. “It took a while to determine that, while on a routine patrol of the outside garden loos, she’d discovered that one of our customers had had a bit of an accident.”.
