HEREFORDSHIRE'S Richard Hammond has said the end of The Grand Tour will “hit me slowly” after an “emotional shoot”.

The 54-year-old, who lives in south Herefordshire, has presented the Amazon Prime Video show alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May since 2016, after the trio left the BBC’s motoring programme Top Gear.

In the final instalment, The Grand Tour: One For The Road, they travel to Zimbabwe where they explore challenging landscapes in cars the three men have always wanted – a Lancia Montecarlo, a Ford Capri 3-litre and a Triumph Stag.

Speaking about the end of 23 years working with Clarkson and May, Hammond told the PA news agency: “I don’t think it’s sunk in, you could see it starting to sink in when we were shooting the final scenes of the final one.

“People were starting to realise, oh, hang on a minute, this is the end. I remember when it started 23 years ago, thinking great, well, this is a network opportunity.

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“It took me from just 30 to 54, so it’s quite a big slab of of my existence.

“I think it’ll probably hit me slowly over the next few months – at some point I’ll realise, oh, hang on, I don’t do that any more.

“It’s going to be odd.”

Hammond said he would not rule anything out” when asked whether he would work with Clarkson and May again, despite saying “we’re all busy”, but added the trio would definitely stay in touch.

He said the group had “got close” while working together on Top Gear and The Grand Tour.

Hammond added: “There was a magic that used to happen, that I really felt, at the beginning of every shoot.

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“So we’d spend months planning these things, and then we’d get out on to the ground and we’d all be finally, at last, it’s day one, moment one, standing on the desert sand, or glacier, or jungle, or mountain, or wherever we were.

“And the whole crew would be gathered around, the same camera operators, and sound, and all familiar faces in our big family, and then the director would say ‘action’, and it’s as though we’d all stepped into a world that we’d all been in anyway."

The Grand Tour: One For The Road launches on Prime Video on Friday September 13.