Richard Hammond

He used to be the master of Bollitree Castle. A Grade II-listed mansion in Herefordshire, all stone and history and rolling parkland. He shared it with Mindy for 23 years, raised two daughters there, parked extraordinary cars in the drive.

Now he lives in a rented farmhouse. Misty fields outside. A vintage dove-grey Jaguar in the yard. The workshop twenty minutes closer than it used to be.

"I like it," he says, in the first episode of the new series of Richard Hammond's Workshop. "It's got amazing views, a place to keep some of my cars and bikes and best of all it's closer to the workshop." Then the cheerfulness drops, just for a moment. "I'm trying to put a silver lining on this. It's been a tough few years, but it's not all bad."

Richard Hammond is 55. He is dressed, as always, in snappy style — skinny cream chinos, a fitted white shirt, a powder-blue jacket. The goatee has been salted and peppered over the years. There are bags under his eyes. But there is something else there too, something that wasn't always visible through the Top Gear banter and the Grand Tour bombast. Honesty. Depth. A man who has been through the mill and is choosing, very deliberately, to come out the other side.

320mph. The Philosophy That Saved Him.

In September 2006, at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, Richard Hammond climbed into a jet-powered dragster called Vampire and drove it at 320 miles per hour. A tyre blew. The car rolled. He was in a coma for two weeks. He suffered brain injuries that affected his memory and his emotions. The recovery took years.

He wrote a book about it — On the Edge: My Story — and millions of people read it. But the more important thing that came out of the crash was a philosophy. A way of being in the world that he has applied ever since to everything that has gone wrong.

"I've always believed — and this sounds like therapy talk but it was my own thought — that nothing has happened to you until you react to it. It's your reaction that defines it. Absolutely. You have total choice on that. I include my brain injury and the recovery afterwards."

He is applying the same logic now. To the divorce. To the grief. To the workshop that keeps losing money. "Whatever happens to us, we can decide. Maybe not in the moment — I didn't decide, as the car was going over at 320mph: 'I'm going to make this a good thing.' But there came a moment when I thought, 'Right, my reaction to this is going to be positive.' That's what you have to do. Well, it's what I do."

It is not denial. It is not the relentless positivity of someone who has never been tested. It is the hard-earned philosophy of a man who has been at 320mph with a blown tyre and chosen, in the aftermath, to make it mean something good.

Herefordshire in autumn — the county Hammond has called home for two decades.

The Smallest Cog. Half a Million Pounds. Still Going.

Five years ago, Richard Hammond set up a classic car restoration workshop in Hereford. He called it The Smallest Cog. He sold a Lotus Esprit 350 Sport, a Bentley S2, a 1969 Porsche 911T, a Honda Gold Wing, a Kawasaki Z900, and more — vehicles worth at least a couple of hundred thousand pounds — to buy the equipment. He hired skilled mechanics. He started taking in clients' cars.

Four series of television later, the workshop has lost approximately half a million pounds. "God, yeah. Tons of it," he says, when asked if he's lost money. "And also, I sold a load of my cars and bikes when I set up, to buy all the expensive equipment."

Was there a point when he thought it was a mistake? "Yeah. Most weeks I've thought, 'This just doesn't work.'" But he hasn't quit. Because the workshop isn't really about the money. It's about something older and deeper.

"My grandfather apprenticed as a cabinet maker and went into coach building, then cars, in Birmingham. He could work wood, metal, any material. It was always an ambition of mine to have a workshop, as a means of getting involved in the industry properly."

One of his proudest moments was buying a hand-built Morgan 44 Sport in British Racing Green for his father. Alan Hammond was thrilled. He and Eileen drove it down to France and Italy on holiday. A son, a father, a Morgan, the open road. Some things are worth more than half a million pounds.

The kind of workshop Hammond has always wanted — where the work is real and the cars have stories.

The Rented Farmhouse. The Vintage Jaguar. The New Chapter.

He moved out of Bollitree Castle. The Grade II-listed mansion in Herefordshire where he and Mindy had lived for years, where their daughters Izzy and Willow grew up, where the extraordinary cars came and went. He moved into a rented farmhouse nearby. The decor, he admits, looks like a bland hotel. But there are misty fields outside. And there is a vintage dove-grey Jaguar in the yard.

"I like it. It's got amazing views, a place to keep some of my cars and bikes and best of all it's closer to the workshop." He pauses. "I'm trying to put a silver lining on this."

He is also, for the first time in a long time, on his own. Not performing. Not being The Hamster. Not doing the bit. Just Richard Hammond, 55, in a farmhouse in Herefordshire, with a Jaguar outside and a workshop twenty minutes down the road and two daughters he is enormously proud of — Izzy now co-hosting DriveTribe videos with him, Willow finding her own way.

Is there room for a new relationship? He winces. Sucks in air. "Oh, I don't know. I haven't got time. Right now I'm coming to the end of a series and then… that will be for me to think about."

That is not the answer of a man who is broken. That is the answer of a man who is busy. Who has a workshop to run, a series to finish, a Jaguar to drive, and a life to rebuild. On his own terms. At his own pace. With the same philosophy that got him through a 320mph crash and a fortnight in a coma: choose your reaction. Make it a good thing.