FORMER Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond has been ordered to pay £1,771 in court penalties for two speeding offences, after police spent weeks tracking him down to his new Monmouthshire address.

The 56-year-old – who currently presents The Smallest Cog classic car restoration show from his Hereford workshop and is due to appear at the Abergavenny Food Festival next month – committed the offences last December on the A40 near Monmouth and the M50 east of Ross, near where he previously lived.

West Mercia Police sent letters to his former Grade II-listed Bollitree Castle home near Weston-under-Penyard and a farm near Hereford, but they were returned as "addressee gone away".

Telford Magistrates' Court was told that Hammond was clocked in a Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo by a hand-held speed camera doing 68mph on the A40 50mph zone in Pencraig west of Monmouth on December 2.

Twenty days later, he was captured doing 82mph in a Bentley Continental GT on the M50 Rudhall Overbridge where the limit is 70mph.

Police eventually traced the TV star to his new £2m 21-acre home at Llanwenarth, where more than 30 vehicles are registered, and also accused him of ignoring the letters and failing to identify himself as the driver.

The latter two allegations were dropped though after his solicitor told the court: "He replied identifying himself as the driver. He sent the reply by first class post. He posted the reply himself."

Hammond admitted speeding through his solicitor and was fined £999 with £240 costs and a £532 victim surcharge and handed seven points on his licence.

He and former TV colleague Jeremy Clarkson were both banned from driving for three months in France in 2013 after speeding at more than 50km the 90km limit while filming a Top Gear show.

The local presenter is due to appear at Abergavenny Food Festival on Sunday, September 20, talking about "global food adventures, extraordinary travels and the story behind Hammond’s Spirits".