Clarkson's Farm

The morning after my meeting with Cotswold District Council,

I withdrew my offer to buy the Coach & Horses.

This was a sad day for me,

and a sad day too for this lovely old building.

But even though I was feeling quite deflated,

I had to turn my attention to a problem

that was affecting every farmer in the land:

the weather, which, like a stuck record,

had reared its ugly head yet again.

There have been grey skies over farming for six months now.

The sodden ground spells disaster.

Crops are already rotting,

while many with livestock have seen grazing land turn into mud.

In 2024,

the ground is simply too wet.

This time, the problem was

we'd had almost continuous rain

throughout a mild winter.

In the past 188 years of weather records,

we've never had a wetter February than the one we saw this year.

And now we were into the April planting season,

everyone was stuck.

No one could get their crops into the sodden ground.

And it was still raining.

Mentally, financially, anything, we can't carry on like this.

We'd been hit, the same as everyone else.

Rain, rain, rain.

It's stopped progress. No spraying, no fertilising, no drilling.

It just keeps on coming.

Subtitle Extracted by: Aren Zohrabi

This meant my crop chat with Charlie

was more of a crisis summit.

I don't want to go on about rainfall 'cause we've done that

in every single programme since we started making Clarkson's Farm.

Basically, since you started farming.

- It hasn't stopped raining. - The weather's been rubbish.

I haven't had one proper year yet.

No.

I printed this out from The Times.

"Sick of all this rain? You should have seen 1872.

By December 1872, after 12 months of continuous rain,

conditions in England were little short of apocalyptic."

At least according to The Times.

"In the fields, rats as plentiful as hares ravaged the cabbages.

In Cambridge, rowers practised in railway ditches.

Rivers flowed into the cellars of Leicester.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was leading emergency prayers for blue sky."

That was in 1872, okay?

"And how much rain did we have in England that year?

Roughly the same as has fallen in the past 12 months."

Interesting, isn't it?

1872, they had the Archbishop of Canterbury praying...

- For blue sky! - For it to stop raining.

- That's amazing. - And now we're just sitting here going,

"Oh, bloody nuisance, this rain, innit?"

- We're getting used to it. - Yeah, yeah.

Anyway.

It's now April the... 3rd or 4th.

How much later can we go

before we have to plant that durum wheat?

We're getting to a point

where the yield is dropping off quite quickly.

And the weather forecast for the rest of this week is rain.

Yes.

Monday, rain. Tuesday, rain.

Wednesday, rain. Friday, rain. Saturday, rain.

It's not a good outlook, is it?

What the fuck are we gonna do?

We haven't got the durum wheat planted.

We haven't got the rye grass in. We haven't got the NUM3 in.

And nor is all of the herbal ley.

- The GS4? - The GS4.

That is in. I planted it.

We might have to re-drill it.

We will have to re-drill it.

- The field I did? - The field you did.

- - It's not growing.

I must say, I was up at the farm shop yesterday.

No, day before yesterday.

- It's quite brown. - Talking to a farmer, I said,

"I've got my GS4 in." And...

- And he went... - Expansive gesture! And he went, "Where?"

Well, he had a point.

The seed went onto the ground and it's no longer there.

- Shit, we need it to feed the cows. - That's the point.

If we want to feed the cows this year,

we want the GS4 in quite quickly as well.

But, the priority is very easy: durum wheat, GS4.

Give me a deadline.

So if by the 24th of April we haven't got the durum in,

that's the problem.

But we have planted it in May before.

And the yield was...

Poor.

Right.

I think that's last year's calendar.

Why haven't we gotten another calendar up?

I don't even know what month that is.

I'm gonna get a calendar and I'm gonna ring it.

- 24th. - There's one on your phone.

Yes, but I can't hang my phone on the wall.

Well, you could.

On the odd day when it didn't rain,

the fields remained completely waterlogged.

Look how much flooding is over here.

- Yeah, all floodplain. - Jesus.

Lisa and I, therefore, used the time to get back to pub hunting.

And, rather sadly, we were spoilt for choice.

- Every single pub owner I went to... - Yeah.

Every single one said that their pub was for sale.

Every single one.

Oh, my God. Like, so, if you look at this, right?

- Yeah? - In 1990,

there was 110 pubs per 100,000 people.

- What, in the UK? - In the UK.

And then, in 2022,

there was about 68 pubs.

- So it's fallen from 110... - To 68.

- To 68, per 100,000 people. - Yes.

I mean, there are so many for sale.

So many.

The first pub we visited was a heartfelt reminder

of this sad decline.

But you're still open, aren't you?

- No, we're not now. - Oh, you're closed.

Closed on Mother's Day.

- Oh, shit. I didn't... Oh, shit. - Yeah.

And what made it even more sad is that the pub was an absolute gem.

Oh wow, look at this.

This is a properly nice building, isn't it?

It's very, very charming.

However, access to its car park meant it wasn't right for us.

So, if it's busy and you've got cars coming in

and cars trying to get out, this is a gridlock right here.

I agree, I agree, I agree. That is an issue.

This is our issue.

The next pub, another beauty, had no parking problems,

a lovely garden, great views,

and a proper Cotswold-pub interior.

Come and see the garden room.

It's a good size. It has a good flow to it.

It's very pretty, isn't it?

- It's very, very charming. - Yes.

Oh yeah, this'll do.

- It's a perfect size. - It's a bar with a view as well.

It's a stage as well. Ta-da!

- Ta-da! I do like a bar. -

But if I wanted to put a shop in it,

it would have to be listed by the planners as a Class E establishment,

not just a pub.

I don't suppose you know if you're Class E, do you, planning-wise?

- Are you a pub or a restaurant? - Er, pub.

Shit.

Okay.

Lisa didn't think this was too much of a problem.

I did, though.

While you're doing planning permission,

we could be up and running and busy.

No, that's true, but...

If you don't ultimately get planning permission, I end up with a pub.

Yes.

And I don't want a pub. I want a pub and a shop and a butcher's.

Our final pub of the tour had good-sized outbuildings...

- Farm shop. - Yes!

A garden with well-aerated soil,

a great name,

and a brilliant car park.

Can you imagine having your own personal traffic light?

There's a sensor on it, look.

I drive up...

"Oxfordshire, stop."

What? You think it'll think the film crew's a car?

Yes, it did!

Look, every... the lorry has stopped.

That's stopped.

Fucking hell, I want that.

But then, we took a tour of the interior.

I mean, let's be honest, it's hideous.

It is the ugliest building in Oxfordshire.

There's so many beautiful Cotswold pubs.

Why would we buy the ugliest building in the county?

We could call it "The Ugly Pub".

Back at the farm, the continuing rain meant

we were confined to the office, unable to plant.

However, rain doesn't stop pigs giving birth.

And that night, Swizz, the pregnant sow,

showed signs that her piglets were on the way.

Oh, my gosh! Did you do that?

All right, get on and do your others.

Well done, mum!

Aw...

Look at that little piglet.

So that one's on, but this one's not yet discovered.

Come on, piggies.

Get some colostrum in you and you won't shiver.

Look for it.

There's the teats, right down here.

Can you get it in your mouth?

Are you on?

- - Yeah!