Inside James May’s idyllic life in one of Britain’s tiniest villages with no shops

has been best known for speeding around the world in supercars on with his co-stars and – but in his down time he likes to retreat to a tiny village in Wiltshire, called Swallowcliffe.

To say that it’s secluded is an understatement. There are no shops, post offices, dentists, doctors’ surgeries or even ATMs there, with residents forced to travel three miles to Tisbury instead.

Meanwhile, you can forget buying a home there, because, at the time of writing, there was none on the market. Even nearby Tisbury is remote, with such little light pollution out in the countryside that the local train station is an official Dark Sky Reserve and constellations can be seen in the surrounding sky with the naked eye.

There’s only one main public building in Swallowcliffe aside from its church – and that’s the Royal Oak pub, which he bought shares in back in 2020. Finding himself isolating in the village during the pandemic, he joked that if he hadn’t stepped in to buy half of it, he would have found himself without a local pub.

The decision ended up placing him head-to-head with , who opened his own country pub in the Cotswolds in August 2024, close to his Diddly Squat farm. In spite of being surrounded by fields and nature, it’s barely a half hour drive from the famous cathedral city of Salisbury, which has put it on the map with tourists from as far afield as Singapore.

The pub, which boasts plenty of “locally sourced produce”, also has six guest bedrooms where visitors can stay.

The menu includes a £75 steak which playfully claims to be the “Chateaubriand of Wiltshire” and an £80 Laurent-Perrier La Cuvee Brut from the Champagne region, which is sold with the words: “For those of you that don’t really care how much wine costs, look no further.”

Another beverage choice, the Domaine Durand Sancerre Vielles Vignes from the Loire Valley area, is subtitled: “We drank 27 bottles of wine and this was our favourite. A glass of Sancerre is also an acceptable form of staff tip!”

Meanwhile, it’s evident which is James’ personal favourite, as the Ribeek Cellars Shiraz wine is labelled with the warning that he’d “bought a few cases for his own personal drinking, so we might not have any in stock”.

Gin entrepreneur James has boasted that The Royal Oak is one of just two pubs that stock his own brand, the other being his London local, The Cross Keys on Black Lion Lane.

However, James surprised fans when he revealed that he doesn’t order a glass of his own gin while he’s there, the reason being that he already has “gallons of it” at home.

Instead, he opts for a beer, with the price going onto a tab – and even takes pints home to enjoy at the self-built house he shares with his partner Sarah.

Although eagle-eyed fans might catch him cycling around West London, and he’d like to keep his home there until he dies, there’ll always be a place in his heart for Swallowcliffe, where he regularly retreats to enjoy idyllic British countryside away from recognition and the crowds.

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