A Michelin Guide restaurant and pub with links to James Bond has shut its doors “with immediate effect”.

The bosses of The Duck Inn in Pett Bottom, near Canterbury, say they have been forced to close due to the impact of rising costs.

Based in the Kent Downs, the scenic pub was previously recognised for its culinary efforts, having been included in the Michelin Guide and ranked in the Estrelle Damm Top 50 Gastropubs Awards.

But a notice on the restaurant’s website states: “We are very sorry to say that due to the impact of rising costs, we have reluctantly taken the decision to close The Duck with immediate effect.

“Thank you for all of your support over the last five and a half years.”

The building dates back to 1623 and sold its first beer in 1849. It was previously called the Woodman’s Arms, before later becoming the Duck Inn.

James Bond creator Ian Fleming was a regular at the pub and wrote You Only Live Twice there in 1964, with the venue also featuring in the novel.

Visit Kent’s website says: “The Duck Inn was one of Fleming’s favourite ‘locals’ – find his preferred seat, marked with a plaque, in the picturesque gardens.

“In You Only Live Twice it is revealed that James Bond spent his early years, under the guardianship of an aunt, in a small cottage beside ‘the attractive Duck Inn’ at the ‘quaintly named hamlet of Pett Bottom.’

“That very cottage is now part of the pub.”

In You Only Live Twice, the fictional secret agent is said to have lived there with his aunt after he was orphaned.

Bond’s boss, M, sent a death notice to The Times newspaper, which reads: "When [James] was 11 years of age, both his parents were killed in a climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges above Chamonix, and the youth came under the guardianship of an aunt, since deceased, Miss Charmian Bond, and went to live with her at the quaintly-named hamlet of Pett Bottom near Canterbury in Kent.

"There, in a small cottage hard by the attractive Duck Inn, his aunt, who must have been a most erudite and accomplished lady, completed his education for an English public school, and, at the age of twelve or thereabouts, he passed satisfactorily into Eton, for which College he had been entered at his birth by his father."

The novel was the last James Bond installment to be published in the author’s lifetime.

After suffering a heart attack in 1961, Fleming had a second shortly after returning from the Royal St George's Golf Club, where he had dined with friends, to a hotel in Canterbury.

He did not recover, despite being able to apologise to the ambulance crew en route to the hospital, and died at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital on August 12, 1964 – the date of his son Casper's 12th birthday.