A shop made famous by TV comedy The League of Gentlemen has closed after more than 100 years.
Family-run butcher’s JW Mettrick & Son traded under five generations in Hadfield, Derbys, which doubled as weird Royston Vasey in the cult BBC show.
Mettrick’s stood in for the shop from which butcher Hilary Briss – played by co-writer Mark Gatiss – dispensed “special stuff”.
Visitors have come from all over the world to be photographed in front of it.
In real life, Mettrick’s has won the title of Britain’s best butcher and was famed for pies and sausage rolls.
Owner John Mettrick said the decision to close was “very, very tough”, but the shop had faced falling customer numbers, parking problems and rising costs.
“It’s been a very, very tough decision, one we’ve agonised over for at least a couple of years,” he said.
“We’re just finding the village is becoming more and more residential on the main street, and we don’t have any controlled parking outside the shop, so basically people can park there and leave their cars there all day while they’re going to Manchester on the train.
“Customers just can’t get to us - the footfall’s been coming down, and obviously overheads only go one way, and that’s up.”
It became even more famous aas the setting for notorious butcher Hillary Briss in The League of Gentlemen whose addictive and highly immoral “special stuff” was a highly-prized delicacy.
Mr Mettrick said the show - which aired for three TV series and returned on its 20th anniversary in 2017 - did give the shop a boost at the time.
He added: “We did have visitors from all over the place who would pose at the front of the shop and ask to have their noses Sellotaped up so they could appear as some of the characters.
“I would prefer to be known as the shop that won Britain’s best butchers, rather than a TV series."
