A Wiltshire ironmonger's has closed its doors for the last time, a victim of rising overheads, the loss of local parking facilities and falling sales.
Dentons, in Chippenham, has been trading for 60 years but owners Paul and Cilla Thatcher made the hard decision to call time on their business and shut the shop on Saturday.

Mr Thatcher, who also owns the 2A Electrical shop in the town, told diyweek.net that he had acquired the long-established ironmonger in 1999 after the death of previous owner Ken Terry.

"I'm an electrical contractor originally, and I opened up 2A Electrical in 1981 as a lighting shop," he said. "I'd known Mr Terry who owned Dentons, and when he passed away I bought the shop.

"It was a new venture running an ironmonger's and it was successful for some considerable time. But they closed the local car park and built flats on it seven or eight years ago and ever since then trade has gone downhill. Overheads also keep going up and it's become unprofitable. And there's so much red tape about now. All these little things add up."

He said he had thought about selling the business as a going concern rather than closing it down. "But the shop itself is so dilapidated it needs money spending on it and it wasn't worth it, so we decided to call it a day," he said. He will, though, continue to trade from his lighting shop.

Mr Thatcher said that quite a bit of the shop's stock was still left although the closing-down sale had gone very well. Meanwhile, the store's vintage paraffin dispensing machine is destined for Chippenham's museum.

Mr Thatcher said the closure had had minimal impact on Dentons' four staff, three of whom were part-timers over retirement age.

Mr Thatcher has now applied for planning permission to replace Dentons with nine flats.