Jeremy Clarkson has announced that his Diddly Squat farm shop will close for the months of January and February to facilitate repair work to the shop roof.
The shop, which became a star attraction after the hit Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm, has seen visitors coming from all over the world to buy produce from the shop.
It has been ordered to close for repair work following an order from West Oxfordshire District Council.
Diddly Squat – ‘the best farm shop in the world’ according its website – was established in 2020.
In season one of Clarkson’s Farm, viewers saw Clarkson accidently produce 40t of potatoes and from that, develop the idea to sell them.
Now, the store sells apple juice, milk from a local dairy, honey, vegetables from the farm gardens and bread from Sourdough Revolution, made with Jeremy’s wheat, as well as produce from local villagers and shop merchandise.
What is Clarkson’s Farm?
The Amazon Prime series, which premiered in June, followed former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson on his mission to run a 1,000ac farm in Chadlington, Oxfordshire.
The programme showed Clarkson purchasing his first pieces of machinery (and struggling to use them), picking the foundation animals for his flock (and trying to keep them within the walls and hedges of the farm), among other routine farming tasks.
Helped only by his gang of agricultural associates, Clarkson quickly discovers that a modern farmer must be a conservationist; scientist; shepherd; shopkeeper; midwife; engineer; accountant; and tractor driver – often all at the same time.
But despite the success of the show, the realities of farming meant the business did less well. At the end of the year, Clarkson revealed the farm had made a profit of just £114, branding the project “an expensive failure”.