thatchandthrottle

The Complete Clarkson: Every Jeremy Clarkson Sight in the Cotswolds

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:58:52 GMT

Diddly Squat, The Farmer's Dog, Hawkstone Brewery- and the ancient standing stone that started it all. Here's how to do every Clarkson sight in the Cotswolds in one day...

If you've watched Clarkson's Farm and found yourself thinking "I want to go there" - you're not alone. The show has done more for Cotswolds tourism than any travel guide in recent memory, and the good news is that all three of Jeremy's ventures are within about 25 minutes of each other by road.

The slightly less good news is that they're all extremely popular, queues are real, and arriving without a plan on a Saturday morning is a reliable way to spend most of your day in a car park.

Here's how to do it properly - starting, as all good Cotswolds days should, from Thatch & Throttle HQ...

Stop 0: The Hawk Stone

Before the farm shop, the pub, or the brewery, there's the thing that started it all - and almost nobody visits it.

The Hawk Stone is a Neolithic standing stone sitting in a field just north of the hamlet of Dean, about ten minutes from Thatch & Throttle. It's 2.6 metres tall, made from oolitic limestone, and has been standing here since the Stone Age. Local tradition has it that the cleft at the top was made by the chains of witches tied to the stone, and there's a concave hollow worn smooth over centuries by people rubbing it for luck.

Clarkson named Hawkstone Lager after this stone - it stands in the fields where the barley for his beer is grown. The ads he filmed here were subsequently banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (one for containing the phrase "f*** me, that's good", another for claiming the beer was better than Birmingham). Very Clarkson.

It's free, it's five minutes from the road, and it's the kind of thing you'd drive straight past without knowing it existed. Which makes it the perfect first stop.

Stop 1: Diddly Squat Farm Shop

From the Hawk Stone, it's a short drive to the farm shop itself outside Chadlington, just off the B4022 about two miles from Chipping Norton. It opens at 9:30am Wednesday to Sunday - go early, go on a weekday if you can, and know that the car park fills quickly on weekends.

The shop focuses on produce: Hawkstone beer, honey, jams, Bee Juice rum, Cow Juice vodka, and whatever's come off the farm that week. There's a café serving burgers and Hawkstone on tap, and the views across the 1,000-acre farm are genuinely spectacular.

Worth knowing: the shop primarily sells produce rather than merchandise. For Diddly Squat branded clothing and gifts, the Grand Tour tent at The Farmer's Dog is better stocked. And while you're unlikely to see Clarkson himself, Kaleb Cooper - who grew up in Chadlington and by his own admission rarely travels further than Banbury - is a more realistic sighting.

Stop 2: The Farmer's Dog

About nine miles south, just off the A40 at the Asthall Barrow roundabout near Burford, sits Clarkson's pub. Opened in August 2024 in a former 15th-century barn that had been abandoned for years, The Farmer's Dog serves nothing that wasn't grown or reared in the UK. No black pepper, no avocado, no Coca-Cola. Hawkstone on tap, sausages of the day, steak pie, and a Sunday roast that sells out regularly.

The restaurant requires advance booking - tables are released a month at a time and go fast. The bar and outdoor Farmer's Puppy tent are walk-in. The on-site Diddly Squat shop is the place for merchandise. Closed Mondays.

One detail Clarkson's Farm fans will appreciate: the field used for overflow parking charges £2, which goes directly to the local farmer whose land it is. Very on-brand.

Stop 3: Hawkstone Brewery

About 25 minutes from The Farmer's Dog, just outside Bourton-on-the-Water on the Stow Road, is where the lager named after that standing stone in Dean actually gets made. Originally the Cotswold Brew Co, founded in 2005 by Rick and Emma Keene, it was rebranded as Hawkstone in 2022 after Clarkson invested and his face appeared on the side of a very large barn. The mural of Clarkson and Kaleb is enormous and absolutely worth a photograph.

Brewery tours run to around two hours and cost approximately £24 per person - book ahead. They cover the full brewing process and include generous sampling of the lager, cider and spirits. The on-site Hawkstone Arms bar is open without booking and serves pints alongside food from pop-up kitchens.

How Moggi fits into all of this

Moggi doesn't run on Hawkstone. But as it happens, all four Clarkson sites - including the Hawk Stone - sit neatly on a loop that starts and ends right here in Finstock.

The route takes you past Dean to the Hawk Stone first, then out to Diddly Squat near Chadlington, south through the Windrush valley to The Farmer's Dog near Burford, and north to Bourton-on-the-Water for the brewery before looping home through some of the best driving country in West Oxfordshire.

The fact that The Farmer's Dog sits next to Asthall - where the Mitford sisters grew up, and which features on our Hidden Villages route - is either a coincidence or evidence that this corner of the Cotswolds is simply very good at having things worth stopping for.

Our full 'Complete Clarkson' will be sent alongside a my 'Complete Cotswolds' guide for any customisations before your day hiring Moggi!

Click here to reserve your day :)

The Best Hidden Villages in the Cotswolds (And How to Actually Find Them)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:05:48 GMT

A local's guide to getting out the ice cream queue...

Everyone finds Bourton-on-the-Water eventually. The trick is knowing what comes after it.

I've spent my whole life in this part of the world - growing up around the lanes, the villages, and the pubs that don't make it onto anyone's itinerary. When I started Thatch & Throttle and began handpicking routes for guests, I wasn't researching the Cotswolds for the first time. I was just writing down what I'd always known.

And what I know is this: the best villages here are the ones nobody told you about, so here's a couple...

(Old) Minster Lovell

Few places in the Cotswolds stop you quite like Minster Lovell. You descend a narrow lane into the village, cross the River Windrush, and suddenly there are 15th-century ruins on your left - roofless, atmospheric, and completely free to enter. Minster Lovell Hall was built in the 1430s by one of the richest men in England and later became the home of Francis Lovell, close ally of Richard III. After the fall of the House of York it passed through various hands, was eventually stripped for building stone in the 18th century, and left as the haunting remains you see today. Don't miss the medieval dovecote in the adjacent field, which once housed 700 birds. It's the sort of place that makes you wonder how it isn't on every itinerary - and then quietly relieved that it isn't.

Bledington

Bledington wraps itself around one of the finest village greens in the Cotswolds, with a brook running through the middle and ducks wandering freely across it. The 16th-century Kings Head Inn sits right on the green and has been described by the Sunday Times as "the classic English country pub one always hopes to find but seldom does." It's the only pub in the village, which means it doesn't have to try too hard - and it shows, in the best possible way.

Upper and Lower Slaughter

The Slaughters are perhaps the worst-kept secret on this list, but they earn their place because nothing quite prepares you for how beautiful they are. Two villages, a mile apart, connected by the River Eye. No shops, no queues, no car park chaos - just Cotswold stone and water and the kind of quiet that feels genuinely restorative. Go early morning or late afternoon and you'll likely have them almost to yourself.

Asthall

A tiny hamlet just outside Burford that most people drive straight past. Asthall Manor - where Nancy Mitford spent part of her childhood — sits at the edge of the village and hosts an acclaimed contemporary sculpture exhibition in summer. The rest of the year the village is simply itself: peaceful, unspoiled, and very easy to miss.

Lyneham

One of the quieter villages on the route — no pub, no tearoom, nothing to draw a crowd. Just a handful of cottages, a church, and the kind of lane you slow down on because it feels wrong to hurry. These are the places that stick with you.

Bruern

Home to Bruern Farm Shop and Café, which makes the perfect mid-route stop. Local produce, excellent coffee, the kind of place that feels like a discovery even though plenty of people clearly already know about it.

Daylesford Organic

Neither hidden or a village but Daylesford needs no introduction - it belongs on this route as the point where the day shifts gear. After the quiet lanes and ruins, this is where you partake in somewhere worth the hype...soak in the almost unbelievably perfect Cotswold aesthetics and local produce to eat and reflect on the fact that you've covered some of the most beautiful ground in England.

Wilcote, Dean and Ramsden

The villages you pass through between stops, and in many ways the soul of the route. Wilcote is barely a hamlet. Dean is barely bigger. Ramsden is quiet enough that you'll probably have the road to yourself. These aren't destinations - they're the reason this kind of drive exists.

The honest truth about finding all of this...

Not all these places advertise themselves. Some have nowhere to park, some have no signal, and several are on lanes that require a certain confidence behind the wheel.

Which, as it happens, is exactly why this route works in a Morgan 4/4. Moggi is narrow enough for the tighter lanes, small enough to pull into a passing place without drama, but more-importantly the right vehicle to leisurely slow-down (physically and mentally!) on roads that were never designed with modern cars in mind.

Our full 'Hidden Villages' route is hand built around these quietly extraordinary spots & beyond - it will be sent alongside a my 'Complete Cotswolds' guide and other carefully selected full & half day routes before your day hiring Moggi!

The winding lanes and honey-coloured villages are waiting. You probably shouldn't need much more convincing than that!

click here to reserve your perfect day :)