Closure ends 100-year business

The remaining shop from a family chain of butchers which has served Black Country customers for more than 100 years will close to make way for a pizza takeaway.

John Hunt, aged 60, will close his shop on Newtown Street, Great Barr, after Pizza Hut gained planning permission for the new takeaway, although he has not got a date as yet.

It marks the end of an era spanning more than 100 years.

Mr Hunt's grandmother Kate Mytton first opened a butchers shop in Lodge Road, Hockley, in 1896, called J Mytton after her brother.

Miss Mytton then met and married John Hunt the baker who had a shop next door – Mr Hunt junior's grandfather.

Mr Hunt senior then decided to switch trades and become a butcher. Another branch of Mytton's opened in the 1930s in Aston Lane, Perry Barr, which was run by an aunt.

In 1966 the first Hunts shop was opened by Mr Hunt junior's father Albert, in Birchfield Road, Perry Barr.

This is where Mr Hunt junior learned his trade and he would go with his father to cattle markets to supply the shop. He opened the Great Barr shop in 1993. He said: "I was one of the few remaining butchers in Birmingham to get meat from cattle markets. I finally stopped going myself in April 2006.

"Now somebody else gets me the meat from markets in Bridgnorth.

"It was in the 1960s when I started going with my dad every week.

"It's sad we have to close. Some of the customers are worried they won't get the same quality of meat anywhere else. I cure my own bacon and make my own sausages.

"We have done quite well here but I wouldn't advise anyone to be a butcher now. The trade is not what it was. It's gone down due to the supermarkets."