The Deep Purple star was once the owner of The Springs Resort & Golf Club in North Stoke near Wallingford – now part of the Talacre-based Darwin Escapes portfolio

The rock singer’s guitar-shaped swimming pool is no more, but resort manager Ben Scholes said in 2024 renovations and new facilities – including the 1893 spa and Ridgeway Restaurant – have proved incredibly popular with visitors from across the UK and beyond.

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Ian Gillan has other strong Oxfordshire connections – one night early in 1983 a meeting at a different hotel in the county led to him joining heavy rock contemporaries Black Sabbath.

He told Mojo magazine’s Hello Goodbye column that he joined Black Sabbath after getting a call from Tony Iommi suggesting a drink somewhere between Birmingham and Reading.

Ian Gillan said: “We decided upon The Bear at Woodstock. I was driving an orange two-litre Fiat Mirafiori, which got rear-ended by a guy who was chasing me and didn’t see me stop at a junction.

“I pulled up outside The Bear with a wreck of a car.

“I can’t remember anything else until the next day when I had a call from my manager Phil Banfield.

“He said something along the lines of ‘Ian if you are going to be making major career decisions you should be talking to me first’.

“Apparently we had a few drinks and they (Black Sabbath) offered me the gig and I, who had nothing else on at the time, agreed.”

Ian Gillan in 2010 (Image: Aleksey Chalabyan Xelgen)

Ian Gillan told Mojo Black Sabbath then went straight to the Manor Studio in Shipton-on-Cherwell to record the Born Again album.

The singer added that during the recording sessions he was camping in the grounds in a small tent.

“I like camping and cooking my breakfast over an open fire. After breakfast I would go into the studio to hear what they had put down and then start work on the lyrics,” he told the magazine.

The singer left Black Sabbath after about a year, as it was agreed he should make one album and tour for a year.

He added: “I was incompatible, our backgrounds were chalk and cheese, musically and geographically.”

Ian Gillan rejoined Deep Purple in 1984 and remains a member of the band.

Handheld spray devices will be given to officers, allowing them to spray a traceable forensic solution from up to 10 metres away.

The spray is designed to link an offender to the exact scene of an incident, helping police gather evidence.

Thames Valley police will also be using the tool, the BBC reported in April.

The Smart Tag technology can link individuals and vehicles to specific incidents through a unique, traceable code, relating to the pressurised canister it was sprayed from.

The crackdown comes amid Oxfordshire’s e-bike and e-scooter expansion planned.

The scheme, which currently focuses on city centre e-scooters, will broaden to include both e-bikes and e-scooters across a much wider region.

The central Oxfordshire area, covering Oxford, Botley, Kidlington, and possibly Abingdon and Wheatley, will be included in the expanded initiative.

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Lime bikes in Oxford (Image: Andy Ffrench)

E-bikes will also be introduced in the Science Vale area, around Didcot, Culham, and Harwell, as well as in Bicester.

Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) intends to appoint a single operator for both e-bikes and e-scooters throughout the county.

The expansion plan includes stricter parking controls, with hired scooters and bikes being parked only in mandatory parking locations pre-arranged by the council or the relevant landowner.

Many residents are wary of the plans, Lord Krebs speaking on the matter in the House of Lords said: “Where I live in Oxford, one of the problems with e-bikes and e-scooters is that all too often they’re dumped on the footpath, blocking the way particularly for mothers with prams and pushchairs and for elderly people and the sight impaired.”

Peter Hitchens, author and newspaper columnist, has consistently called for the licensing of e-scooters and e-bikes.

He said the e-scooters and e-bikes are an absolute “mess” and “everywhere” and said there has been an “experiment” for more than four years that nobody knows if it has succeeded or not.

Thames Valley Police, which covers Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, has already seized more than 100 illegal machines in recent operations and warned that privately owned e‑scooters used on public roads risk fines, penalty points and confiscation.

According to the report, Thames Valley officers use SmartTag to mark suspects and their vehicles during incidents, with anyone stopped later subject to UV checks to see if they carry the forensic code.

A briefing to the Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel states that the spray remains on skin, clothing and other surfaces for extended periods, strengthening the evidential link between offenders and specific crime scenes.

The television presenter, journalist and farmer is best known for fronting motoring shows Top Gear and The Grand Tour.

Mr Clarkson became a household name after joining Top Gear in the late 1980s and later helping relaunch the programme in 2002, turning it into one of the world’s most-watched factual shows.

Since 2019, the 66-year-old has run Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds and starred in Prime Video show Clarkson’s Farm, which follows his attempts to make a success of agriculture.

Series five of the programme was released across June of this year, and series six is currently being filmed here in Oxfordshire.

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Mr Clarkson has recently opened up about a “disaster” that previously occurred at the Cotswolds farm in Chadlington.

On social media site X, one fan said: “Just watching series five where the wheat had no moisture, and the onions had to be replanted.

“This might be a silly suggestion, but why wouldn’t you repurpose the crop sprayers to carry water from your streams and have them spray it on the crops?”

Mr Clarkson responded: “We did that in season one or two. Can’t remember. But do recall it was a disaster.”

Fans were quick to reply to the TV star’s statement and sympathise with the situation, as one said: “The sheer volume of water required to irrigate a field is massive.

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“Can only be done efficiently if pumped and piped from the source, which would be a huge cost. That’s what you found out in the earlier series – can’t be transported for the volumes required.”

Another added: “Just finished series five, superb as always and we have just also been discussing the water situation.

“We think you should collect rainwater (or water from the stream) and get Kaleb (dressed as a sunflower) to water all the plants with watering cans.”

A third suggested: “How about Agro bot? If you still have it, [I’m] sure [that] it can be adapted for that?

“It would probably need some beefy water tanks. Maybe have a word with the manufacturers.”