A grandmother says she feels like hanging a funeral wreath on the door of her beloved Marks and Spencer when it closes its doors for the final time this weekend.

M&S in New Road, Gravesend, will shut at 5.30pm tomorrow and 93-year-old Vera Purll will be one of hundreds of people sad to see it go.

Mrs Purll, of St Benedict’s Avenue, has been shopping at the store for decades and campaigned vigorously to keep it open, gathering more than 800 signatures for her petition.

Mrs Purll added her signatures to the Messenger’s Save Our M&S petition which had more than 2,000 names in total.

However, the campaigning was not enough to change the minds of store bosses who decided to go ahead with the closure.

Mrs Purll did one of her last shops in her favourite spot last week and described it as looking as bare as “Mother Hubbard’s cupboard”.

She said: “I’m shopping at Sainsbury’s now. I’ve always dealt with both of them but I’ve dealt with Marks and Spencer since I was married and that’s 70 years ago.

“It’s very hard to take. It’s been one these things where I’ve felt like hanging a wreath on the door.”

M&S owns the building and it will now be a tense wait for shoppers and members of Gravesham council as the company sorts out a deal with prospective buyers.

The site is prime retail space but would need a chain big enough to fill the two storey building, which backs on to the St George’s Shopping Centre.

Many people in the town are concerned it could be turned into another pound shop or coffee shop, with other rumours circulating that department stores such as Matalan or TK Maxx could step in.

Council leader John Burden said he thought M&S was waiting for news on the Heritage Quarter development.

A high court hearing challenging planning permission for the development will take place on October 30 and 31. Civic society Urban Gravesham launched the legal bid.

Cllr Burden said: “It’s a shame that they’re [M&S] not getting on with marketing the building at this stage.

“But what they’re looking at is that it’s not going to be long now until we have a high court judgment going through about the Heritage Quarter development.

“We’re obviously looking for a positive outcome and that will increase the interest in the town.

“The development will also increase the value of the M&S building.”

M&S opened in New Road in 1914, and moved to a different part of the street in 1927, where it remains until Saturday.

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