Blenheim Palace has partnered with Heritage Interpreters and City Lit College to deliver the scheme, aiming to improve accessibility across the heritage sector.

The programme, launching in September this year, will train deaf individuals to lead BSL tours at major national attractions.

Heather Carter, managing director of visitor attraction at Blenheim Palace, said: “Despite successful training courses for deaf BSL guides, taught by deaf tutors in the past, the demand for training has always exceeded the supply and training has waned in the last decade.

“At Blenheim Palace we are committed to making our attraction and its history as accessible as possible, and this special partnership to create a programme to train more BSL deaf tour guides is a natural and vital progression for us.

“We are excited that other heritage attractions will then be able to share this valuable resource.”

The announcement follows pilot deaf-led BSL tours held in 2025 and 2026, led by John Wilson, a deaf BSL guide.

Applications for the programme will open in April via the Heritage Interpreters website.

Participants will receive professional training to deliver engaging, authentic tours in BSL, with the goal of expanding the network of deaf-led guides at heritage sites across the UK.

‘Water in motion’ was their latest weekly theme and they sent in a wide variety of shots featuring rivers, gardens and beaches.

Oxfordshire has the River Thames and its tributaries but no proper beaches but quite a few photos of the sea and sand were sent in by our members showing various locations.

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We particularly liked this shot of two people having fun at the water’s edge, taken by Julia Johnson-Fry, and it’s our photo of the week.

With some beaches just a few hours’ drive away, there will no doubt be more beach photos taken once the weather warms up.

Each week, camera club members are given a theme and then post their photos on the club’s Facebook page. A selection of pictures are then featured in our papers and online. The next theme is ‘windows’.

The former Top Gear and The Grand Tour presenter lives in Oxfordshire, where he runs Diddly Squat Farm in Chadlington and The Farmer’s Dog pub in Asthall, near Burford.

More recently he has become known for starring in Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon Prime, which documents his time running the 1,000-acre farm.

He has been a vocal supporter of the UK’s farming industry regularly highlighting the issues the sector is facing.

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In addition, in late 2024 he marched in London as part of a protest against a new 20 per cent inheritance tax on farms valued over £1 million from April 2026.

With the tax about to come into force, Mr Clarkson has revealed he has been making plans for his death in his latest The Sunday Times column.

It comes as he has previously revealed that he underwent emergency heart surgery last year at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital after suffering pains.

Jeremy Clarkson arrives at the farmers’ protest in London (Image: Supplied)

Since then, he has been on a new, healthier diet, which has resulted in a noticeable weight loss.

In the column, he reflects that if you’re a farmer and die after April 5, the children will have to “sell up” due to the new policy.

With this in mind he said he’s hoping to “hang on until the Labourites have gone” in the hope the policy will be reversed.

He also revealed that he has been preparing for his death, including looking into his will, his donor card and what might happen if he is incapacitated.

Mr Clarkson said: “All I can say is that I ‘would wish not to be in a vegetative sate’ and that I would ‘prefer it if no heroic efforts’ were made to bring me round after a prolonged deprivation of oxygen.”

Luke Hawes at the farming protest (Image: Andy Ffrench)

Farmers have continued to protest the inheritance tax changes since they were announced.

In 2025 in Oxford, local farmers launched a noisy protest involving tractors.

They parked large tractors outside Oxford University’s Examination Schools where the two-day Oxford Farming Conference was being held.

Farmers in tractors sounded horns outside the conference but did not block the High Street as police monitored the peaceful protest.

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Luke Hawes, a beef and arable farmer at Oakley, near Thame, said the protest was a show of unity from farmers.

He added: “The policies the Government is coming up with are not sustainable, particularly the inheritance tax policy on agricultural property and business property relief.

“My father is 81 and owns the family business, which is valued at about £6m.

“But if he dies within seven years of handing it down we could be hit with a massive tax bill.”