Locals in the sleepy hamlet overtaken by the “circus” around JD Vance’s vacation are growing increasingly irate with the vice president already.
Vance and a 20-strong motorcade thundered into Dean in Oxfordshire on Sunday, transforming the usually bucolic bolthole into a fortress swarming with sniffer dogs, armed British police and plainclothes U.S. Secret Service officials.
The vice president, his wife Usha, and their three children are in the area for a not-so-quiet getaway. Dean, near the market town of Chipping Norton, is in the Cotswolds, a sprawling area of countryside nicknamed the ‘Hamptons of England.’
The Cotswolds is frequented by the wealthy elite, including Hugh Grant, David Beckham, and King Charles. And, generally, “everybody is welcome,” according to one local who spoke to British publication LBC on Monday.
However, this welcome does not extend to President Donald Trump’s right-hand man, the local added. “No, I’d absolutely kick him in the shins,” she said.
This ill-feeling began on Saturday when roads were closed, and locals trying to access the hamlet were subject to ID checks. Large vehicles belonging to either the British police or their American counterparts shattered the countryside calm when they started rattling around the usually quiet roads near the 18th-century Manor House, where the Vances are staying.
“I told the police, ‘we are two old ladies, we are hardly terrorists’,” one local woman in her seventies told The Times, after she and a friend were stopped by a police officer while out on a Sunday stroll.
“We said, ‘You poor things, guarding this awful man.’ It must be costing us a fortune. Another few thousand pounds down the pan.”
Some locals have suggested that road closures have made a “proper protest” impossible. Instead, they have littered the tiny West Oxfordshire village with placards. “Vance you are not welcome,” one read. “Go home,” said another.
Another local has not forgotten the Oval Office showdown in February, when Vance and Trump attacked the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. “What he did to President Zelensky was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen, and he’s a bully, he’s not welcome as far as I’m concerned,” they said.
It comes after Johnny and Pippa Hornby, the millionaire owners of Dean Manor, apologized to locals for “the circus for the next few days.” They said they hoped it would not be “too disruptive.”
The manor is not far from the farm owned by Jeremy Clarkson, an outspoken British TV host who has made his feelings on Vance clear in the past. Clarkson recently described Vance as a “bearded God-botherer” with “no clue about history.”
Residents of Dean have erected placards protesting against the arrival of American vice-president J.D. Vance in the tiny West Oxfordshire village. They say they are “extremely angry” but the police presence which has sealed off the village has made a “proper protest” impossible. pic.twitter.com/o028Ls6osV
— Oxford Clarion (@OxfordClarion) August 11, 2025
Ellen DeGeneres, who decided to move to the U.K. with her wife Portia de Rossi after Trump’s re-election, is also a recent American expat living in the area.
In July, anti-Trump protesters warned that they would derail Vance’s English countryside escape. However, the Stop Trump Coalition has not yet interrupted the VP’s stay.
The group has planned a protest for Tuesday in Charlbury, the nearby village which is home to The Bull pub, where Kamala Harris dined on a recent U.K. visit.
Laura Macy, an American resident of the village, is planning to attend. “Let’s all who deplore Trump, Vance, and the deplorable situation in the US raise our voices in any way we can,” she said.
Before heading to the Cotswolds, Vice President Vance shut down Hampton Court Palace on Sunday morning so his family could tour Henry VIII’s old digs. The closure left hundreds of visitors—many of them families with kids—stuck outside in the August heat.
The gates, normally opened by 10 a.m., stayed shut at 11 a.m. as ticket holders were told to come back an hour later. They didn’t get inside until 12:30 p.m., by which time Vance had departed in his motorcade.
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