A family business with more than 120 years of history is closing its doors in Hampton Hill after three generations.

AC Hughes, in 1 High Street, is a bird-ring manufacturer founded in 1893 by a pigeon racer who lived locally and worked on the railways.

Both the building and the business are now going to be sold, with the former currently in the planning stages to be redeveloped into new flats.

Abraham Charles Hughes, the grandfather of current owners – brothers Stephen and Jeremy Hughes – began making bird rings as part of his hobby.

Stephen Hughes said: “He used to keep pigeons. He wanted some way of marking the birds so he could select the best ones for pigeon racing.

“He made some in his own back garden shed and then his friends said they were good and wanted him to make them some; in the end he was making more money by making rings than he was on the railway.

“And then he eventually bought 1 High Street because it had a bigger garden and shed.”

The brothers have seen a lot of change in Hampton Hill in their own lifetimes.

Mr Hughes added: “When my grandfather started the business over a hundred years ago, Hampton Hill was a much quieter place.

“Most of our staff came from the Park Place area; Myrtle Road has become a yuppie area now.

“It has changed dramatically; there used to be two or three greengrocers, three butchers, a lot of pubs have gone, The Star is still there, The Jenny Lind is gone, the pub on the corner – The Duke of Clarence – is now a restaurant.

“We went through a period where everything was second-hand or antique shops. It’s constantly changing.”

The staff travel from further afield now, from towns like Hounslow.

Mr Hughes said the workers are “sad” about the closure but are now approaching retirement age and “redundancy will be quite a good thing for them”.

He added: “I’m coming up for 74, I should have retired about nine years ago, but because we were still managing I continued on. It’s quite difficult continuing on with all the new legislation.”

“The business has had its up and downs. Obviously the second and first world wars had a big effect on the business and then it started to thrive, but we’ve had quite a lot of competition over the years.”