A village is to lose its only butchers’ shop today when brothers Andrew and Martyn Ward pull down the blinds on their business for the last time.

P Ward and Sons in The Street in Benenden will shut at 12 noon (December 31).

The business was started by the brothers’ late parents - Peter and Betty Ward - in 1970, with Andrew and Martyn joining four years later.

Together they have run the show for the past 50 years.

Martyn Ward said: “We’re very sad to be leaving, but it is time.

“I am 68 and Andrew turned 70 in November.”

He said: “Our customers have been very upset.”

“Like so many villages these days, Benenden will now have no butchers.

“It is a sad for them and for us - we have been here since we left school.”

The brothers are now contemplating a quieter life with “a bit of travelling, a bit of cycling, a bit of fishing - all the usual retirement things.”

Neither man had children and there is no-one to take over from them.

The business is situated in a part-weather-boarded. Grade II listed historic building, Fir Tree House, in the centre of the village, that dates from the early 1800s.

Mr Ward said the intention was to see the shop front restored to its original residential use. The brothers live in the property.