The news this week that Kent butchers' JC Rook and Sons had ceased trading and gone into administration was devastating for the 155 staff at the company's 11 shops.

But it was also a hammer blow to the traditional High Street, with many towns finding big chain supermarkets are now the only local outlets where it is possible to buy fresh meat.

Rooks was a well-established family that had been in business for more than 50 years. It had ridden out many previous disruptions to the High Street, but it seems it could not ride out the decline in trade caused by the Covid pandemic.

Of course, Rooks is not the first butchers chain to fail.

Probably the biggest disaster was in 2006, when Dewhurst, a Tunbridge Wells company that had been founded in 1897 by the Vestey family, and had shops in Gillingham, Sheerness and Sittingbourne, went into administration, closing 1,400 stores across the country.

The firm blamed increases in rent and energy costs.

In 2018, the chain closed 35 shops and cut 350 jobs, but that wasn't enough to avoid it going into administration later that same year. Entrepreneur Tom Cribbin stepped in and bought the remaining 19 stores.

The loss of butchers from the High Street is far from being a recent phenomenon.

As long ago as 2008, the Meat Trades Journal was warning that butcher shops were closing at the rate of 23 a month.

By 2019, there were only 5,447 butchers left in the country.

In the year 2000, the figure had been 9,081, and in 1990 it had been 15,000.

The number is certain to have reduced again in the last two years thanks to Covid.

Previous crises to have rocked the industry include the BSE scandal.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease, which seems to have been caused by farmers feeding their cattle meat and bone meal, first appeared in 1986 and reached its peak 1993, with almost 1,000 new cases being reported every week.

Notoriously, the then agriculture minister, John Gummer had appeared on television, feeding a burger to his four-year-old daughter, in an effort to convince shoppers that meat was "completely safe." Shortly afterwards, doctors proved that transmission to humans was possible.

It is thought that 178 people died in the UK from eating infected meat.

British beef was subsequently banned by most of Europe, a ban that wasn't lifted until 2006.

Subsequent legislation has eliminated the problem of BSE.

The industry was further hit by an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001.

Although only 2,000 cases of foot and mouth were identified, six million sheep and cattle were slaughtered to stop the spread of the disease.

This time the government was right in its advice that foot and mouth would not spread to humans, but public confidence in ministerial pronouncements had by then severely shaken.

Both crises had the result of increasing prices in the shop, while also putting some people off eating meat.

More recently, there has been a cultural change in eating habits, with an increase in the number of vegans and vegetarians. This combined possibly also with a growing awareness of climate change, in which many see meat production as bad for CO2 emissions, has added to the meat industry's woes.

Figures suggest that as many as 6% of the UK population are now vegetarian and a further 3% are vegan.

The meat business has not been helped either by changing medical opinion.

A paper in the medical journal Lancet published last year urged everybody to reduce their consumption of red meat by 50%, both on health and environmental grounds.

With so many pressures on their business, it is perhaps not surprising that butchers are disappearing.

But for many regulars, a trip to the butchers isn't just about buying meat, it is a social occasion.

And with their expertise, butchers could often given advice on which cuts were best for which dish, the quantity needed, and even offer guidance on best to cook your purchase, a service lacking if all you do is pick up a pre-wrapped package of meat from the supermarket counter.

Most people who grew up buying their meat at the butchers, recall it with fondness.

Our photos show some of the businesses that have been lost over the years.

Among them are Ashford butchers Jack Guy the Pork Butcher and A. Sellars, Mr Pickards in Walmer, Betts of Maidstone, Youngs of Herne Bay and Boormans of Canterbury.

On the other hand, some butchers have tried to quit and found they couldn't. Stan Ward has been in the butchery trade since he was 15, ending up with his own business, Kent Fresh Foods, in Sheerness High Street.

In 2019, Mr Ward, now aged 64, tried to retire and sold his business to CJ Meats, but the new owner soon ran into difficulty and the shop was closed the following January.

Mr Ward received a desperate plea from the building's landlord, urging him to return, which he did, and Mr Ward, a great grandfather, is now once again a familiar figure behind the counter, declaring; "It's good to be back!"

There are, however, still some independent butchers in business in the county - among them S W.J Crouch, in the trade since 1977, with branches in Staplehurst, Bearsted and Wadhurst.

The lesson, say Kent's remaining butchers, is that if we want to keep them, we must all make sure we use them, and all year round, not just at Christmas.

Ilsa Butler, the manager of Maidstone Business Improvement District (BID), said: “The shopping landscape has shown some big changes in recent years, as has been the case across the whole county.

"We are sorry to hear that one of these changes will include the closure of Rooks, a well-known and recognisable name in Maidstone and elsewhere in Kent for many years.

She said: "We wish the team at Rooks all the very best of luck for the future at what must be a very unsettling time.”