Jeremy Clarkson opens his ‘unfinished’ pub for Euros ultimate

Jeremy Clarkson has shared a first glimpse inside his new Cotswolds pub after opening the ‘unfinished’ venue for the Euros final amid renovation works on Sunday.  

The Grand Tour host, 64, who offered the previous owner a whopping £1M for the boozer within minutes of meeting her, was every inch the landlord as he served customers his own Hawkstone beer.

The Windmill is set in five acres of Cotswold countryside with stunning views across the Windrush Valley – and just ten miles from his Diddy Squad Farm, where he brews his beer and cider.

In a video Hawkstone shared to Instagram Jeremy could be seen behind the bar that boasts copper and chrome details as well as fancy pumps. 

The boozer also features cobblestone walls, traditional beams and a mezzanine floor all decorated in dozens of England flags ahead of their loss against Spain.

In the clip, after being asked what was going on, Jeremy said: ‘Well, we’ve accidentally opened our pub before it is kind of finished,’ 

Surrounded by boxes he admitted that they hadn’t planned to throw open their doors for another ‘four or five weeks’. 

Before going on to say: ‘It’s going to be very many weeks before we’ve got it open, but by mistake we’ve got very many people in here’ 

The caption read:  ‘Last night we got a bit over excited thinking that England might….so we accidentally opened our very unfinished pub for the game’ 

‘More news to follow of a real opening much later in the summer or autumn’.

It’s unclear if the venue was a private event or open to the public. 

It comes after MailOnline revealed that Jeremy was so intent on taking over his local pub that he offered the owner almost £1 million for it within minutes of meeting her.

He was so keen to bring the deal off and make sure the project – and a spinoff TV show – could go ahead that he made the owner an offer she couldn’t refuse.

Jackie Walker, 79, who opened the pub in 1983, hadn’t even put the pub on the market – and was stunned to be told of the TV star’s interest which accelerated into a finalised deal within minutes of their meeting.

Jeremy bought the freehold to the pub and it isn’t tied to a brewery, so he can realise his dream of selling his own beer and produce from his farm at the venue.

Jackie explained: ‘A film crew had come into the pub and the next thing I knew someone with Clarkson knocked on the door and asked if I was interested in selling.’

She was invited to meet with Clarkson at his home in the nearby village of Chadlington where his farm Diddly Squat is based to discuss possible terms.

She said: ‘The first thing Jeremy said to me was I suppose you want a lot of money for this.’

He then made her an immediate offer that was much more than she had expected – and she accepted immediately.

Jackie recalled: ‘It did make me laugh, but that is Jeremy Clarkson.’

She went on: ‘We had met for coffee at his house, and I took over the maps of the place. He and his partner Lisa were charming, and I really liked them.

‘I had not been planning to sell the place, but I wasn’t that happy with how it was being run and I am not getting any younger.’

Renovation work on the pub has already begun and the project will be filmed by the same production company that makes ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ for Amazon Prime.

Jackie, who ran the pub herself for over 30s years before more recently handing over day-to-day running to lease holders while retaining ownership, now hopes The Windmill’s new celebrity patron can revive its fortunes.

She continued: ‘I assume he will make a TV series out of it. I really do hope that he can make a big success of the place and restore it back to how it was. My husband and I had so much fun running it.’

And she revealed the intriguing history behind the building which had a previous existence as a farm barn – and its links to a famous society family.

Jackie and her late husband, Alan, opened The Windmill near Burford in west Oxfordshire in 1983 having converted the disused barn that was on a 750-acre family farm.