WROUGHTON Airfield was at the centre of an Ebola row over the weekend after The Grand Tour host, Jeremy Clarkson, compared its unique shape to the deadly virus.

The show, which is being broadcast by Amazon Prime, is Clarkson’s, Richard Hammond and James May new series intended to rival their former Top Gear programme after they parted company with the BBC last year.

The small south Swindon village featured in the highly anticipated first episode on Friday and took centre stage as the new racetrack where the trio test out the latest cars.

As Clarkson tested out a BMW M2 around the track, he dubbed the former airfield as the Ebola-drome for its similarities to the virus structure.

He told viewers: “It [the track] even looks dangerous on a map, because as you can see it’s the exact same shape as the Ebola virus.”

While his comments caused much debate, the episode highlighed Wroughton with many people taking to social media to compliment the former airbase field, which is now owned by the Science Museum.

Filming for The Grand Tour took place over the summer with catering supplied by nearby Cowpuccinos in the Ellendune shopping precinct.

Oliver Moody, 34 who has been working at the popular café for two and half years, said: “I know when it was filmed, it caused quite a fuss on Facebook mainly because of the noise because it was so unexpected.

"The film crews couldn’t say exactly what they were filming and they were really quite secretive about it.

“A few of the customers at the time asked us what we were doing in supplying so much food and because we didn’t know who it was for we couldn’t say who.

“From what I gather and understand on rumours is that when Top Gear was first out, they used the track at the very beginning, before Clarkson got on board, and that is how it came about here.

“Now it has been broadcast at least it gets Wroughton on the map. I’ve seen people putting up stills from the episode only showing the electric station and people have said they can’t believe it is famous.

Wroughton Parish Council say they were aware of filming at the time and hope the attraction encourages people to visit the village.

When it is not staring in the show, the Science Museum stores large and iconic objects from the National Collections of the museum at the former airfield and welcomes visitors on selected weekends.

The Grand Tour is broadcast every Friday on Amazon Prime.

For more information about visiting Wroughton Airfield go to www.sciencemuseum.org.uk