The future of a nearly 200-year-old pub remains uncertain after its owners put the historic venue up for sale.

It's been serving loyal customers and passing trade in Stone since 1827 but the Welsh Tavern may have called last orders for the final time.

In recent months the pub in London Road, near Dartford, has been shut and boarded up after the former landlord and landlady opted out of renewing their lease.

Leisure property specialists Fleurets, acting on behalf of the Stonegate Pub Group, has put the pub up for sale with a price tag of £595,000.

New owners have been secured, subject to contract, but until further details emerge it is unsure whether it will remain in its current usage.

And according to the sale listing, the venue is "suitable for alternative use", subject to planning permission.

The two-storey pub is described as a "substantial detached public house" with a large beer garden, close to Bluewater Shopping Centre and Dartford town centre.

It's housed inside an unlisted period building with "ground floor single-storey extensions to the side and rear" with "painted external elevations under pitched slate tiled roofs".

As a former coaching inn on London Road used by drovers of sheep and other livestock, the boozer has a long history of serving weary travellers their favourite tipple.

In 1781, the tollhouse erected at "John's Hole Turnpike" was pulled down and a new one erected close to the pub, which became a stopping-off point.

An auction listing from 1837 describes it as "a capital inn with coach house, stables and granary, tup room, kitchen bar, two parlours, two dairy rooms, and two good chambers and four excellent chambers".

The pub was purchased by the Miskin Brewery of Dartford before being taken over in 1875 by Colonel Charles Newman Kidd, of Westhill House, for the sum of £1,300.

Its just the latest in a long line of pub closures across the town in recent years with the Fulwich in St Vincents Road having been converted into a B&B.

More recently, both The Bridges at Horton Kirby and the Papermakers Arms in Hawley Road, Sutton-at-Hone, have now permanently closed.

Further afield, the George and Dragon in Swanscombe, another historic coaching inn, has also shut permanently and could be turned into a pizza takeaway.

Thousands of pubs across the county are braced for a difficult winter amid soaring energy prices, mortgage costs and food prices.

It comes as businesses attempt to recover from the fallow years of the pandemic which saw trade dampened by widespread restrictions.

Historian Christian Bull said the continuing trend of pub closures was not surprising given those pressures but was a real loss for the community.

He said: "It is very regrettable to learn of another public house that can't make a living and I think part of that is probably the companies which they belong to.

"They want to make bigger profits out of a shrinking industry where people prefer to buy out of a supermarket.

"Some are like vampires, they squeeze the life blood out of them."

Mr Bull hosts various historical talks in Gravesend and the surrounding areas of north Kent including "Stone: The tale of the incredible shrinking parish".

"I greatly regret it has happened in a place like Stone which is fighting for its identity," he added.

He fears it is being increasingly "gobbled up" by Dartford and points to how the parish has shrunk from 3,000 acres to just over half that size in recent years.

The historian believes pubs still have a vital role in the future and hopes many like the Welsh Tavern and George and Dragon can be saved, or at least retained as some form of community asset.

"Pubs are one of the many things that create good mental and community health," he said. "They are all part of the jigsaw of a healthy social life."

A spokesman for Stonegate Pub Partners said: “We can confirm that the incumbent tenant of The Welsh Tavern has made the decision not to renew their lease and we have taken the property back.

"It is currently closed while we review the next steps for the pub.”