Antique shop in St Leonards set to close this month

Kings Road Antiques, in Kings Road, St Leonards, is set to close after the shop site was purchased by new owners last year.

Charles Stewart, who ran the store for a decade, said that they’ve been looking for alternative premises but not found anywhere suitable.

Mr Stewart, 59, said: “The new owners will be taking over the premises to start a new venture, and we haven’t found any other site that is suitable. My landlord has been really supportive during the shop’s tenure and the new owners have been nice too, so I can move on with no bitterness.

"We’ve been open for 10 years and it’s been a real journey, we can end with our heads held high. When we opened many doubted that we would last two months, and here we are all these years later.

"The first few months I spent every waking minute in the shop, re-decorating and repairing it back up to standard. It was a huge challenge, and I had moments where I thought I’d made a huge mistake, but I persevered and it ended up being a terrific experience.

"After people got over the usual skepticism of anything new, they really came to love it. I'd hear at least once a day a customer tell me that it was a wonderful shop. People would come from all over just to take a look, especially during Christmas when we’d put up our annual display.

"People in the community have been incredible, so friendly and chatty. The shop was so much fun and all involved have been terrific. We really became ingrained in the community after a while.

"For a shop like ours, that tried to do business a different way, to achieve the level of sustained success we did is a real source of pride.”

Mr Stewart has said that the door is still open to the shop opening somewhere new in the future.

He added: "I’m definitely open to the possibility of opening in a new location, but the circumstances would need to be right. Hopefully we can find somewhere suitable as it would be great to have a part two of this story.”