LAST orders have been called on a historic Burnley town centre pub.

Pints have been pulled at The Cross Keys Hotel in St James’ Street since 1906 but the owners have now closed the doors.

In a Facebook post bosses said the venue would be ‘permanently closed’ with modern drinking habits and its peripheral location to the town centre believed to have contributed to its demise.

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Beer enthusiast and columnist Mark Briggs said he was sad to see another local pub close.

He said: “I think it was inevitable that the Cross Keys would close sadly. It was very much a traditional pub and its location did not help.

“It was on the periphery of the town centre where there are a currently a number of very good real ale bars. It was a free house and the beer was very good but it was out on a limb.

“The traditional ‘wet-led’ pub, as the Cross Keys was, totally relies on beer sales. These types of pubs are struggling now.”

Mr Briggs added that older generations were those who be the ones to lose out with demise of the traditional pub.

He said: “There’s alot of people out there who have been going to their regular for decades and when it closes may not be willing to try something new.

“It's sad as pubs are places were people can meet and socialise.”

Local historian Roger Frost said a pub or inn had occupied the site of the Cross Keys since the early 1500s, but the present building had been rebuilt in 1906.

He said: “There was an inn on the site as far back as the early 16th Century. It more than likely brewed its own ale for many years.

“The Cross Keys name can be attributed to its link to St Peter’s Church in the town, the chapel for Whalley Abbey, which owned the land.”

The owners of the Cross Keys were unavailable for comment.