Jeremy Clarkson's green secret: TV petrolhead presenter reveals pride in

As he leaves the ‘punishing schedule’ of studio-based car shows behind him, Jeremy Clarkson has revealed how he’ll be spending his spare time between filming road-trip specials – with farming and conservation.

And The Grand Tour host, 58, has explained how planting and maintaining crops at his aptly named Diddly Squat farm, made up of nearly 1,000 acres in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, means he can claim to be ‘carbon neutral’.

The petrolhead presenter insisted he didn’t buy his land to offset his carbon footprint but that it is ‘a happy coincidence that, should I ever get into a debate with a climate-change enthusiast, I can say I’m carbon-neutral‘.

This is as a result of Clarkson’s land – where he lives with his 47-year-old partner Lisa Hogan – consuming more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis than he has ever generated with gas-guzzling cars.

Having moved into the farm cottage in 2009, Clarkson explained to The Sunday Times that as he nears his 60th birthday, he’s found ‘nothing fills him with more pleasure’, than stomping around his muddy fields.

Clarkson, along with his presenting partners James May and Richard Hammond, have shifted away from studio car-shows after a 17-year ‘punishing schedule’, as series four of The Grand Tour concentrates on big-budget specials.