A WELL-known butcher’s shop has closed down.

The premises of D Pittaway butchers in Borough Road, Darlington, near the Civic Theatre, is now up for sale.

The shop was owned by Dirk Pittaway for 27 years.

He handed over the reins to his nephew Stephen Feary in 2005.

The shop won numerous awards including the Durham District Butchers Association shield for best sausage three years in a row in the 1990s.

In 2002 the shop was featured in the Shooting Times magazine after one of its reporters discovered the butchers during a visit to the town with her daughter.

Taken aback by the variety of game hanging in the shop window, she popped inside to find “an Aladdin’s Cave”.

According to the London Gazette, the shop entered voluntary liquidation proceedings in 2014.

A spokeswoman for the Pittaway family said the business had closed due to ill-health.