Since parting ways with The Grand Tour, former Top Gear presenters James May and Jeremy Clarkson have both ventured into the pub business. Jeremy, 65, owns The Farmer’s Dog in Asthall, Oxfordshire, which opened in 2024, while James, who turns 63 today, has run The Royal Oak in Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire, since 2021.
The two pubs have developed a spirited yet amicable rivalry, fueled by their famous owners. Last year, James praised his pub as the best spot in the event of a zombie apocalypse, telling The Guardian: “Oh, mine. It’s in Wiltshire. We’re heavily armed down here. People queue up at Clarkson’s. There’s queueing protocol going on, which I don’t like.”
He further criticized the queuing at Clarkson’s pub, explaining, “The whole point of the bar in a pub is that it’s wide and shallow. It’s not a hatch. Why would you queue at it? Good bar people know the order in which to serve.”
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Their playful banter isn’t new. Jeremy reportedly banned James from The Farmer’s Dog last year, leading James to joke on Lorraine that it was “like being banned from a golf club.” He added, “Apparently, and I’ve said before, it’s a bit like being banned from a golf club, I wasn’t going to go anyway. I’ve got my own pub which is just around the corner, I’m not going to go 75 miles to his. Especially as mine’s better.”
Despite the jabs, their friendship remains intact. Jeremy acknowledged to The Mirror, “We’ve spent more time in each other’s company than our families’ over the last 25 years, so I don’t think it would have lasted as long as it did if we’d hated each other as much as James likes to think.”
Beyond their rivalry, both have faced the challenges of running pubs amid the economic pressures on the UK’s hospitality industry. Speaking on LBC earlier this year, James candidly discussed the realities of managing a pub: “The margins are tiny, and one bit of old 18th-century thatch falling off, or in our case, having to resurface the gravelly car park, can be enough to push you over the edge.”
He concluded with a pragmatic view, “I think we do have to stop thinking of pubs as an important part of our heritage or a vital tradition, an institution, or an essential part of being British, or any of that misty-eyed stuff. They have to work as pubs. They have to be nice places to go.”