by Thom Morris

A trader at Ashford’s boot fair has been banned from selling a bizarre item – an unused coffin.

The macabre object was on sale at the town’s Cattle Market boot fair on Orbital Park on Sunday.

It could have been the deal of a lifetime for one savvy shopper as the price fell from £125 to 'open to offers'.

But the market manager has now asked the seller not to bring the coffin back as people thought it was "tasteless".

The coffin was spotted by bargain-hunter Ann George.

The Kennington resident said: "I've never seen anything like it before - a coffin advertised as ‘new and unused and open to offers’.

"I had a friend who was running a stall up there and they were gobsmacked. We’ve certainly never seen one of those for sale before.

“What made me laugh was he had a book on top of the coffin about healthy eating.”

Market manager Ray Scott said a few people had mentioned the strange item for sale to him.

He said: “He comes from Maidstone and we’ve asked him not to bring the coffin back again. We have all sorts of weird things being sold here but we had some people frowning on the sale – they thought it was a bit tasteless.”

It caused quite a stir among browsers and stallholders alike.

One of those was Clare Charles, who was running her Wigs For All stall.

She said: "He had 12 of them up for sale and said he came down the motorway with the coffin on his roof rack.

"He’ll be there again this Sunday and no doubt be the talk of the market yet again."

The coffin went unsold and was fixed to the unknown trader’s roof rack and taken home again.