Graham Meade, owner of the shop has blamed the recession and cost increases for imported products for the closure of the business.

He commented: "The last couple of years have been a struggle. Apart from the recession, we had a severe flood, which forced me to close down for five months, my wife died and I had a heart attack.

"Trade dropped and I had only 60 per cent of the turnover of a year ago. That was down to various factors, such as the increase in costs of the models coming in from China and also some huge delays in deliveries, which had a big effect on business."

Meade also said his overheads were increasing and he had decided it was not worth continuing to trade.

He said: “I realised that financially I just couldn’t continue — it was such a drain on my resources. It would have left me bankrupt if I had carried on.”

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His stock of thousands of model cars, trains, planes and figurines have been sold to a mail order company in Wokingham.