Clarkson’s Pub: Nostalgia on Tap or Countryside Theme Park?
I finished watching Clarkson’s Farm Season 4 over the weekend.
This season marks a shift from the show’s usual focus on arable farming and cattle at Diddly Squat Farm. Instead, Clarkson pursues a new venture: opening a village pub. While farming remains a key theme, the narrative of the show broadens to explore the challenges of rural hospitality.
The show continues to enjoy strong popularity, both in the UK and internationally. The latest season averaged 4.4 million viewers per episode. Clarkson reinforces his signature style throughout, challenging political correctness and local bureaucracy and an ongoing critique ‘red tape’ of local authorities and restrictive farming regulations.
In earlier seasons, Clarkson’s conflicts with South Oxfordshire District Council and the residents of Chadlington were well documented. His reluctance to adhere to planning policy, along with community concerns about increased traffic and tourism, led to ongoing local tension. However, this season carries a more conciliatory and cautious tone. There’s a greater sense of cooperation or at least awareness in his dealings with both local authorities and the wider community.
The first half of the season focuses on the search for a pub site. Clarkson and his advisors meet with Highways Officers when assessing a potential location, which is eventually discarded due to access issues and concerns over traffic and disruption. He appears more mindful of past friction, particularly the impact of visitor numbers at Diddly Squat Farm.
One of the key issues the show highlights is the number of empty or struggling pubs across rural Britain. Rising costs, high taxes, and staff shortages have created an extremely tough operating environment, with hundreds closing each week. Clarkson quickly learns that a relatively simple plan to convert an old pub into a farm-to-fork venue quickly becomes an expensive and complex project.
Roof repairs alone are quoted at over £100,000, kitchens need complete overhauls, and even basic facilities like toilets require significant investment. Infrastructure like water, power, and internet also add complexity and cost to rural settings.
As expected, Clarkson remains a polarising figure throughout. Ultimately, the show culminates in the launch of ‘The Farmers Dog’, which arguably is more ‘theme park’ than village pub, with unmanageable visitor numbers and inflated prices capitalising on the show’s success rather than truly serving any local needs, even if it is more suitably located this time around.
The other perspective continues to cast Clarkson as a paragon for the countryside. This time, using his platform as a spotlight on yet another endangered aspect of rural life. If someone with Clarkson’s wealth and influence struggles to make a pub work, what hope is there for smaller landlords across the UK?
There are also clear political shots fired this season. A sign reading “Keir Starmer not welcome here” and a brief shot of Rachel Reeves’s budget document hint at his disapproval of recent government policy, particularly those around inheritance tax and family farms.
Ultimately, it transpires that Clarkson is just as inept as a Publican that he is Farmer, but he continues to make great television.
Clarkson’s Farm continues to create a cultural callback. The show taps into something deeply nostalgic, a yearning for the “good old days” of Rural Britain, set against an increasingly urban and globalised world.
Getting the harvest in. The village butcher. The Sunday roast. A few pints and a laugh at the local. Then Clarkson on the telly watching Top Gear before bed. It’s Britain as many remember it or wish it still was wrapped in a package that’s as funny as it is frustrating.
