The new Top Gear presenters stunned members of Folkestone Rugby Club by unexpectedly turning up for filming.

Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc and Sabine Schmitz arrived at the Newington ground yesterday in high-performance vehicles and reportedly started shooting "without permission".

They came in a 14-year-old Audi and Jaguar with LeBlanc on a Honda Goldwing motorcycle, and spent an hour-and-a-half there.

Staff member Pat Morgan said: “They just suddenly appeared and filmed with a motorbike, which Matt LeBlanc was on, and an old red Jag and an Audi.

“I could see Chris Evans very clearly but LeBlanc was wearing his motorcycle helmet.

“They did not have permission to film here and it would have been nice if they had asked. So one of our executives went to speak to the crew.

“As they talked the producer finally apologised saying the crew had been given a piece of paper asking them to film here.

"They did not have permission to film here and it would have been nice if they had asked" - Pat Morgan

“They didn’t do any stunts, their vehicles were parked in the main car park.”

Ms Morgan believes this footage was more of presenters talking with the club and the vehicles as background.

Evans, LeBlanc and Schmitz are the new faces for the the smash hit BBC motoring series, replacing Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

That former presenters filmed in Lydd in July 2014 when they drove mock-up ambulances. They were on the Ranges and the nearby Lydd Car Breakers.

Clarkson was thrown off the series in March 2015 after a confrontation with a producer and May and Hammond walked out with him.

The new team have already come under criticism after filming a car doing donuts at the Cenotaph in London on March 13.

Evans promised that footage would not be broadcast.

He and his colleagues will appear on the show for the first time in a six-part series from May.

Evans is already a household name as past presenter of the TV shows The Big Breakfast and TFI Friday in the 1990s. American. He now hosts the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show.

LeBlanc is most famous for playing Joey in the American comedy series Friends and Schmitz is a German motor racing driver.