THE oldest department store in Essex will say farewell to Braintree High Street in April, the Times can reveal.

Townrow, which has been on the High Street since 1871, announced this week it will be closing its doors on April 15 due to running costs.

All 40 staff are to lose their jobs.

Managing director Edward Townrow said they would not be offered roles in Townrow’s other stores, including in Maldon and Frinton, as they are too far away.

He said: “This has been a very difficult decision for the Townrow family, who have been committed to serving the people of Braintree for almost 150 years.

“Our decision to close was made due to the substantial increases in costs of running our Braintree store, making it impossible for us to find a way forward to enable the Braintree store to trade successfully.

“Our thoughts are with all 40 of our wonderful Townrow staff, we are grateful to them for their hard work and support.

“We would like to thank our very loyal customers, who it has been a pleasure to serve and thank them for shopping at our Braintree store.”

Townrow has been a family-run company since 1871, when Charles Townrow opened the first store in Braintree.

The store, which sells clothing, homeware and gifts, has been the town’s centrepiece ever since.

The site went up for sale for £1.3 million in 2015, and in January last year the company started leasing in- dividual parts of the 13,500 sq ft store.

Last month, Farleigh Hospice moved its homeware store into part of the building.

Mr Townrow said: “We tried reducing the size of our site but it didn’t have the desired outcome.

“It’s costs of trading overall.

“We are really sad to be leaving Braintree but we can’t keep running the store at a loss when our other stores have had exceptional growth.”

He said the building would continue to be leased out to other parties.

The family also had a store in Halstead High Street, which closed in February 2010.